The Impossible Takes Longer
by Laryna6
Summary: A never-ending war against an Evil God willing to nuke a city to kill the Chosen Children was no place for a sweet kid like Ken. Ryo just wanted to get Ken home in one piece before the enemy inevitably respawned. But then the second Dark Seed hit.
1. Native Species

_The fic should probably be considered pre-canon-slash._

 _This is an entirely indulgent Tag Tamers AU, written because the muses have been effing rabid; Ken, Wormmon and V-mon are adorable; and the idea of some poor bastard ending up with their actual nemesis as their bond creature is fascinating. The Wonderswan games address a lot of the things I liked_ Digimon Tamers _for addressing._

Tag Tamers is _the second Wonderswan game, the one_ _that introduced Ken and explained where the Dark Seed, Diablomon and the Digimentals came from._

 _The fic starts around the scene in Ken's flashback in 02 where Ken pushed Ryo out of the way of the Dark Seed. Since the flashback shows Millenniummon instead of MoonMillenniummon, one of the ways this is AU of the game is that the Dark Seeds were thrown out after the first battle with Millenniummon instead of the final boss battle._

 _In case you don't like Ryo based on Digimon Tamers, don't worry: Ryo was OOC as heck in Digimon Tamers. When an interviewer asked if that was even the same person, they had to justify how he doesn't act like he did at_ any _point in his four-game-long Break The Cutie by claiming he had amnesia._

 _The second game is Ryo when he's Been Here, Done This – having to fight a god that just keeps respawning isn't exactly a cheerful prospect, but the real trauma hasn't even_ started _yet._

 _Also the Adventure Chosen Children are themselves (and their partners), so_ try _to keep them out of this kind of thing. Just_ try _._

* * *

"Wow, Ken, we did it!" Wormmon rejoiced, battered but happy, as Millenniumon's body fell apart into data in front of them.

Ryo would have liked to celebrate with them, but he didn't want to either set Ken up for disappointment by reassuring him that it was over or burst his bubble by telling him that there was no way Millenniummon wouldn't come back to life. That was the downside about Digimon always coming back from the dead: it was a relief for the Digimon who died either fighting Millenniummon or fighting _for_ him, 'thanks' to his mind control, but not such a good thing when it meant the bad guy would be back in a few months.

If they were _lucky_.

Then there was the Digimon Millenniummon created and sent into the internet to find the other Chosen Children and nuke them, along with Ryo, Ken, their families and the rest of Tokyo. Taichi and Yamato's partners had defeated Diablomon, but its remnants had escaped into the Digital World. Since it died _here_ , according to Gennai it would definitely come back to life too. He'd said it was an artificial Digimon, so it might be weird enough even in baby form they could spot it when it hatched at Primary Village, but keeping a Digimon locked up and too starved to Digivolve for the rest of its life… Ryo didn't like it, it wasn't like that Digimon asked for Millenniummon to create it and it might not really have known what it was doing when it tried to nuke Tokyo – it might have been mind-controlled, for all Ryo knew – but it wasn't like there were a lot of alternatives.

Sure, Digimon could be sealed away, but according to Gennai Millenniummon was the one who messed up the seal on the Digimon called Apocalymon that was the reason the Digital World appeared in the sky after the Odaiba Incident, and put the seal on the Four Holy Beasts that Gennai needed to use up the other Digidestined's crests breaking, so seals weren't something they could count on to stop Diablomon, much less his creator.

So yeah, let Ken and Wormmon celebrate while they could, they'd really worked hard for it. At least they'd learned a lot, so Ryo wouldn't have to be quite as worried about them the next time they got called in?

He looked around. Wormmon was here, Ryo had seen two of the Digimon who came with Ken to fight Millenniummon go up in data, Valkyrimon and Vikemon were easy to spot – where was V-mon? Ryo had sent him to use one of the floppies with healing data on Vikemon before running over here to check that Ken was staying safely out of the way instead of helping Wormmon hand out items – the good thing about being a child, human or Digimon, was that once a battlefield had a few craters, it wasn't hard to move from cover to cover and hand out healing items while the Ultimates kept each other occupied. Running around on a busted knee was a stupid thing to do, but Ryo needed to get the fight over with before he had even more injuries to deal with, and Ken needed to get home.

Ken's partner was a proverbially weak Digimon, so Wormmon had learned to get darn good at moving fast without attracting attention, and while V-mon would rather be fighting, he caught on pretty quick for someone who had just hatched for the first time – he'd been sealed to await his destined partner until Gennai needed someone to fetch Ryo. Then Agumon got turned to stone.

Maybe V-mon was still over by Vikemon? That Vikemon had digivolved from Armadimon, _not_ Gomamon, or else Ryo would have had to tell him to leave no matter how helpful Joe's partner Vikemon was last time. Gennai had found Hawkmon and Armadimon along with V-mon and Wormmon when he was trying to find Ryo's partner. After what happened to Taichi and Agumon, it just wasn't safe for any of the other Digidestined's partners to get involved, but except for Wormmon they didn't have partners yet. Huh, it was strange, come to think of it: Vikemon reminded him of Takeru's partner Seraphimon if anything, even if they looked nothing alike.

Mentally writing an apology to V-mon's future partner in case he'd gotten the little dinosaur stepped on by Millenniummon and dying left him traumatized – not likely, V-mon was pretty irrepressible, but apparently dying actually was kind of a big deal in the Digital world if you weren't Millenniummon – Ryo suppressed a sigh (right, didn't want to depress Ken with reality just yet), scanned the horizon over to the right and tried to pick out a clear path over to Vikemon to start looking for V-mon. That was the problem with fire attacks on sand: of course Ryo had running shoes with good thick soles on, but glass…

"Hey, get down!" Ken shouted, and pushed him to the ground. A moment later the kid cried out.

Oh no! Ryo pushed himself up as quickly as he could, frantically checking over the younger kid. Not now, there was a chance Ken could have stayed safe back in town after this battle! With the dimensions rejoined in one spot, anyway, there might not have needed to be two Chosen Children with Digivices fighting anymore! "Ken, are you okay?"

"Ken!" Wormmon said, worried, climbing onto his partner's chest to nudge at him.

The light wasn't good, Ryo noticed as he tried to check over Ken. Had it gone dark? A sandstorm? Debris kicked up by Millenniummon's fall or some attack?

Something hit him.

A sharp, _piercing_ pain that made his neck arch and mouth open as though he was about to cry out, but instead of a scream there was a startled gasp, like Ken's, because it wasn't quite _pain_ but something… strange.

It left him shuddering, fallen over Ken and Wormmon. He lay there, able to do nothing but feel something _happening_ to him. Something was inside him, sliding into him like a key into a lock. He could barely even contemplate resisting, still not sure what this was, but he felt something in him _click_ , and yes. Not a knife, cutting him open, but a key made to open this lock.

A lock made to open for this key _. He was made for this_.

As he thought that, he felt himself go limp. He could feel himself opening, not being pried open but swinging open, and he arched as something cool and soothing poured into him. Something that _belonged there_.

Something he had been waiting for, all this time, and he was so close to realizing what it was, what it had to be…

A clawed fingertip was poking his side. "Hey, Ryo?" V-mon asked, worried.

He must have been too focused on what was happening to him to hear the little dinosaur's footsteps crunching towards them in the sand.

Ryo pried open his eyes, glad to see V-mon looked alright. Some scrapes, unless that was dirt, but nothing major. He sounded worried, not pained. Ryo closed his eyes again, still conscious of the weight within him, a soothing contrast to the heat of the desert and the frantic effort of battle, needing to coordinate the Digimon and keep an eye on Ken after the dimensions merged. He felt tired, but not exhausted. He'd expected to feel exhausted after the battle, judging from the last time he fought Millenniumon. He _wanted_ to curl up and just rest, but he didn't ache with the need to even if he'd been run ragged for weeks now. "Can you ask one of the others to carry us back to Gennai's?" he asked, because a desert was not a place for a nap, especially when some of Millenniummon's minions might come to see what happened to their master.

He felt Ken's body shudder, and pushed himself up with one arm. Ken's face was drawn in pain. Yeah. He had to get the kid to safety.

"Right!" V-mon said, and rushed away across the sand as fast as he could on short, stubby legs.

Ryo stretched, and the movement felt better than it normally did. It made him aware of something cool flowing through him, coating his nerves, distancing him from the aches and pains and banged-up knee he'd accumulated trying to get out of the way when they were attacked while still being in range to give orders, even with V-mon to help look after him. Wow, he'd wished he had an ice pack for his knee… Thinking about it, though, reminded him that if he was this banged up, after having done this before and knowing what not to do? Ken was younger than he was, too.

"Ryo, Ken won't answer me!"

Poor Wormmon, so scared for his partner…

"There was some junk flying around," Ryo told him. "He's not bleeding, and his breathing sounds fine, so he should be okay if we get him back to Gennai's." He touched the orange messenger bag at his hip, but everything in there was for Digimon – if he had anything left he knew was safe on humans, he wouldn't have gone into that fight with his knee acting up.

V-mon returned with Valkyrimon, riding on his shoulder, and Ryo picked up Ken so the Valkyrimon could scoop them both up. He sat down, settling Ken against his side and letting Wormmon jump into Ken's lap before saying, "Alright, ready for take-off."

Vikemon was much slower than Valkyrimon, so he'd have to walk back to town on his own. Ryo wished they could wait for him, not just for his sake but because if Valkyrimon was ambushed while weighed down with two humans, without any backup except two rookies? The other two Ultimates were… he wished they had families to apologize to, or _something._ He knew they'd come back as digi-eggs, that they'd wanted to fight the monster that enslaved them after Ken freed them from his control, but it still hurt, to see people die right in front of his eyes because even if he'd taken an extra week to train to try to be sure they were good enough to protect themselves and look after Ken… Ken's protectors had taken the brunt of the attacks.

You'd think that if Millenniummon didn't like one of them, it would be Ryo, when Ryo fought him before, but Millenniummon had 'invited' Ryo into the digital world by sending that thing to try to nuke Tokyo and the Chosen Children. Maybe he'd resented Taichi and Ken showing up to their private grudge match?

Ryo let his eyes slide closed. He could hear the wind around them, Valkyrimon's heavy wingbeats. Thankfully, it would take them a lot less time to get back then it took them to get this far, even if he wasn't sure _how_ much less time. He and the Digimon helping him needed to clear out Millenniummon's bases on the way instead of striking on past so they didn't end up surrounded.

He felt so relaxed, open, the tension in his shoulders from… closer to three months than two now of being constantly braced for attack just gone. He was already half a year older than he should be given when he was born, so it was a really good thing humans didn't age in the Digital World. He wasn't sure how much older than they looked the other kids were, but he'd bet at least a year.

The first time he fought Millenniummon was easy to remember: New Year's Eve. He wasn't sure what day today was, you were _supposed_ to lose track of time during vacation, but he thought it was still March, if not for long. Not even three months since the last time. With Millenniummon coming back that fast – if he didn't figure out how to make it faster – then the time spent in the Digital World would add up pretty fast. He wondered if he'd lose track of how old he was. It would be pretty easy to do: since the Digital World had spent so long disconnected from time in the human world, it didn't really have years, and if it had seasons at all they were regional, according to Gennai. They had a thirty-day sort-of-month, but even in File City things weren't really organized enough yet for people to be planning things for specific days much further ahead than that. Would File City even still be there this day next year?

Millenniummon liked to rewind time to undo all the damage the Digimon fighting for Ryo (and Ken, this time) had managed to do to the evil god. Had some kind of desperation attack or healing spell misfired, like the way 'final attack' could be linked to the Phoenix summon in Final Fantasy VII?

Ryo groaned, knowing that Millenniummon had probably survived again. If he'd pulled off something powerful enough to affect him and Ken at that kind of range, then he probably wasn't 'dead.' Well, either way he wouldn't be _dead_ dead, but not even reduced to a digi-egg. Even if he was too good an actor for the people who took care of Primary Village to catch him unless they got _really_ lucky, it still took him some time to get to Ultimate… even if it was three months, when a lot of other Digimon couldn't even reach Ultimate if they lived for thousands of years. Being a God of Time probably let him cheat, and he'd also made Diablomon and rounded up an army again in those three months, so it probably didn't take him even that long to reach Ultimate.

Ryo wasn't going to go back and check if Millenniummon dispersing into data had been some kind of trick and he was still there; they were _not_ in shape for the second stage of a boss battle against that guy. He'd told Ken not to bring more than a couple of his allies (and his partner, of course) to the fight because if Millenniummon started throwing around AoEs there was too much risk Ken and Wormmon would get fried, so once they got back to town they could meet up with Ken's other allies and he could pick out a couple guards to stay with Ken and Gennai while Ryo went hunting for wherever Millenniummon was now.

Thank goodness the dimensions Millenniummon split the Digital World into had synced up again during the fight, here anyway, otherwise Ken would be in the other dimension where Ryo and his allies couldn't help him, with no one but Wormmon to protect him. Wormmon wasn't strong enough to drag Ken all the way out of the desert before collapsing from hunger, so Ken would have been stuck until Ryo could get back to town and send a message to Gennai in the other dimension to send Digimon out looking for Ken.

He heard Ken whimper softly and frowned. Why did Ken have to get hit with something that hurt him – probably just a rock, even a distance-weakened attack from an evil god as powerful as Millenniummon would have banged up a human kid really badly – while Ryo got a healing spell? Or maybe a buff. Or regen. Ryo flexed his knee. It didn't make him hiss, but still not good.

Well, that was a good thing. Regen this slow, involving such a tiny amount of data in the digital world, would take awhile to do much for Millenniummon. Unless he sped up time, of course.

Of _course_ he would, if Ryo could think of doing it.

"Hey, you okay down there?" V-mon called.

Ryo looked up to see V-mon leaning dangerously far forward off Valkyrimon's shoulder to peer down at them. "I'm fine," he said. "Ken's still breathing and not bleeding. How far out are we from the digi-port?" He could have stood up to look over the edge of the hand and check if he could see for himself, but he'd have had to move Ken.

"We'll get there in a minute!"

"Oh, thank you V-mon," Wormmon said gratefully, rubbing his little feet-hands together and probably looking up at V-mon with those big eyes. Ken was lucky to have a partner like that, Ryo thought, frowning at the memory of someone asking what kind of Digidestined had one of the weakest, most pathetic Digimon in the digital world for a partner.

It was sad that Ken couldn't digivolve Wormmon past Child stage, though, when he didn't have any problem digivolving other Digimon to Ultimate.

Gennai had reassured Wormmon that if Ken needed him, he'd digivolve, and Wormmon had decided that he didn't want Ken to be in danger, and it was much better for Ken to have Ultimates to protect him than a Adult who might be really weak, but it still made Wormmon sad and sad Wormmon was a crime.

Ryo peeled an eye open again to put his hand on Wormmon's head. "He'll be okay," he promised the little bug.

Wormmon still couldn't help being worried, when he cared so much about Ken, but Ryo was the experienced big kid and Wormmon had faith in him, so he saw him look at least a little relieved.

Ryo wondered why he was so sure. There were internal injuries, and poisons and other things. It would be just like Millenniummon to do some kind of vindictive last minute thing to get the distraction out of the way before he came back to attack Ryo again, properly this time.

Taichi and Agumon had insisted on coming to help this time, but Millenniummon froze them in time and Gennai managed to warn the other Chosen Children before they could get here to be frozen. Tai was lucky he was _only_ frozen, not dead, after Diablomon tried to nuke him.

That begged the question of why Ken wasn't frozen, but judging from what Ken said about what Millenniummon said to him, the evil god held him in too much contempt to take him seriously. Which was mean, but not as mean as stepping on him, and whatever kept the kid alive.

Everyone was okay last time – even the Digimon would come back to life.

Dimly, he registered going through the digi-port, and the thump as Valkyrimon landed. He didn't open his eyes, letting Wormmon rush up to Gennai and… sound of wings… yeah, that voice was Piccolomon's. So the dimensions were rejoined in the town too as well as the battle site? Maybe they actually had managed to weaken Millenniummon, for awhile anyway.

He heard Piccolomon fly over and felt him pick Ken up. "Ryo?" Gennai asked after Piccolomon flew off, probably towards the house.

"I'm awake," he said, "Just tired." Right. "A lot of stuff got kicked up when Millenniummon fell, I think he was trying something elaborate at the last-minute and it misfired. Or maybe Ken just got hit with a rock… He'll be okay, right? I promised Wormmon."

"If Millenniummon did something to him…" Ominous silence. "I'm sorry, I'm no match for Millenniummon when it comes to the dark arts of technology. If it's an ordinary injury, the best healers in town were already summoned, to help one of the Chosen Children."

"That's good."

"Do you need a healer?"

"I'm fine." Ken first, he'd buy something for his knee.

Gennai was probably giving him a look. "You weren't fine when you left, Ryo."

He and Ken had needed to simultaneously assault Millenniummon from both of the dimensions he'd separated the Digital world into (dimension god too? As though his time powers weren't unfair enough), because if he was severely damaged in one dimension and not the other, the part of him that was doing fine would just rewind time on the other part and it would be like they hadn't even fought him. Ryo hadn't wanted to delay the attack anymore once he thought Ken had a team that could handle it with Ryo to distract Millenniummon. (And that had worked _so_ well.) Poor kid was getting homesick, even if with the time dilation up again, his family probably hadn't had enough time to get too worried.

No more than Ryo's did last time. They'd noticed that he'd changed, after that New Year's Eve, but he was there when they got home, wasn't he?

"Just tired," he said. "Any chance I could get a lift to bed too?"

Gennai chuckled. "I think we can manage that, for one of the saviors of the Digital World."

Gennai's tone was teasing, but Ryo wished he could find it funny. "Not saved yet," he warned the old man, since Ken wasn't here to hear it. "Keep an eye out, I bet we didn't finish him off this time either."

"It's not your fault, Ryo. All Digimon return from death, but to return with all his memories intact and regain his power so quickly… I've only heard of such a thing once, with the Child of Hope's partner, and that certainly can't be the case here. Until I can figure out what spell he cast and devise some counter, he'll just keep returning and I'll have to keep summoning you to the Digital World." The old man sighed.

"It's not your fault," Ryo said. "You're doing your best too."

"I appreciate your help: you've done so much for the digital world, but I'm old, and the oldest of you… You don't even have a partner to protect you. I asked Agumon to look after you again, but…"

"Hey, you found V-mon, and he's great."

"You bet I am!"

"Yeah," Ryo said, and smiled, eyes still closed. "Your partner's going to be really lucky someday…" Huh, the cool weight within him was warming. Probably wearing off? Felt nice, though. "I'd like to get to a bed before I really do fall asleep here." Before all the aches and pains could come back.

So easy to fall asleep, with every bit of him relaxed and wrapped around that soothing heat. Afterwards, he didn't even remember his head hitting the pillow.

He did remember getting up and walking out of Gennai's house, even if he wasn't aware of it while it was happening. Telling Piccolomon that he wanted to check up on his Digimon (his?).

He'd kept walking though, all the way to the digi-port. Looking at it, he'd known how to work it the way he knew how to work a telephone – no, better, he might be aware that telephones worked by electricity and stuff but he wouldn't know how to build one or hook it up to the network.

How to get _here_.

The door opened for him. Of course it wouldn't dare bar his path. Not when he belonged here. Not when he was finally so close to where he should have been all along.

A great crystal towered over him. In its purple depths, he could barely make out two pairs of eyes watching him. _Pleased_. They were pleased.

That was good, he knew, and smiled up at them as he walked into the insubstantial depths of the crystal.

The force that moved him laid the fragile human body down carefully before placing it into sleep mode and carefully freezing it in time… except for the darkness spreading through its nervous system.


	2. Potting Stolen Wildflowers

He stretched without sitting up. "Could I get a mattress and stuff in here?" he asked the warm darkness. Well, it felt warm inside his head, but that didn't make the floor any less cold.

Wary silence greeted his words. "Are you not comfortable?" Because he should be. Had something malfunctioned?

" _I'm_ comfortable." He was, absolutely. He was so relaxed he felt melted, like a puddle… a puddle with the occasional bruise and twinge. "My knee isn't, though." Not after spending some time lying on a metal floor.

A low, dangerous pause, and he could feel the protective wrath wrap around him, under his skin. "Are you injured?"

"Nothing big. I'll heal up, but a hard floor isn't going to help."

"You will have what you need. Who dared injure you?"

Ryo paused. "You know, I honestly don't remember? And I'm not just telling you that so you can't find them and torture them when they hatch at Primary Village. Everything just blurs together after a while. Some of it was my own fault." Running on uneven ground might be how his knee got busted, now that he thought about it. "I'm lucky I haven't twisted an ankle."

He felt his memories being paged through, like fingertips stroking down the back of his head. The sensation put his mind on pause for the few seconds it lasted, just feeling.

"Don't hurt them," he said first thing when it was over, and only then hummed slightly at the memory of how it felt to have that someone reaching into his mind. Concern that should have felt clinical, but it was focused, not impersonal. For _him._

"They caused you harm."

"You're the one… You didn't order them to attack me, either time," Ryo somehow knew. "Right, you captured the Chosen Children instead of killing them last time."

"My orders were capture, not kill, and this time I knew what you were." How _dare_ they. "Their orders were to force you to exhibit your skill, not risk harming their Lord's Destined One."

Ryo had to chuckle: how weird that he didn't know this. It made him seem more… human, somehow? "Hate to break it to you, but humans are pretty fragile, and Digimon have some pretty powerful attacks. The safe distance is tricky to estimate even when I have a pretty good idea what they're throwing around. I didn't even get hit, unless you count getting knocked over by the ground shaking or shockwaves." Which Ryo really didn't. "If you ordered them to make sure the Digimon helping me had to fight, then yeah, you ordered them to do something that was going to get me roughed up. Not their fault."

"The other Chosen led charmed lives and were rarely injured… but then, you lacked a Digivice to channel your power for your protection." A glimmering light appeared in the darkness above Ryo.

The urge to keep lying here like a happy puddle was replaced by the urge to reach up to take it, and Ryo did because something told him it was… It was. "A digivice?" His fingers tightened around it. "My own digivice?"

"I know how the Order of Qinglongmon manufactured them. I upgraded the design, of course."

So that was why it didn't look like Taichi's. Taichi's was a pager, and this was more like a walkie-talkie. "My own digivice," he repeated, voice soft. Which meant, "My own partner." After all this time, after Agumon, whose every thought was of Taichi, after V-mon's eager anticipation of his own partner (Ryo was cool, and Ryo wasn't even his partner, so his own partner was going to be _so_ cool!), after getting to see two real partners spend time with each other. Ken and Wormmon, both of them so fragile and so kind, so determined to take care of each other.

After all these months, his wish had been granted.

The sensation of heavy, deep approval pressed him down into the floor. He arched his back, pushing himself up into the force not to fight it, but to feel it. "Mmm." Probably a good thing he had a digivice, the stray thought came into his mind, and then he wondered why he thought that. Well, because it meant he had a partner and was with his partner, of course. What else were digivices for?

Well, freeing Digimon from Millenniummon's mind control, but the only Digimon here was his partner and Millenniummon wasn't stupid enough to accidentally enslave his _own_ mind…

"You are mine," he was informed.

"Right." He nodded, relaxing again. "I've never had a partner before, but I know what they're like. That's why I wanted mine so much," he confessed. "I felt like such a jerk, envying Ken-"

"Why would you envy that pathetic waste of my time?"

"Because he had a partner. And then I felt worse for wanting to complain to Gennai about how my partner still hadn't been found even after I saved the world _months_ ago because Gennai can _never_ have a partner. Piccolomon's his friend, and you can tell he'd like to be Gennai's partner because Gennai's old and could really use a protector, but Gennai can't be a Digimon's partner any more than he can fight a Digimon." Poor old guy, feeling so useless when he had to ask other people to fight. He did a lot to help out and organize everything, but Ryo understood what it was like to feel like it was never enough. "Asking, well, letting Digimon fight for me, when I'm not their partner and it's not the same… but I have my own partner now." That approval again, more fond now than fierce, just brushing against his back.

This wasn't normal, that was pretty obvious. Even by Digimon standards.

Felt really nice, though…

"And I have my human. You're skilled for someone so young – and self-taught – but with my training you will become as unstoppable as I am."

That made Ryo smile. "You're pretty tough," that was for sure, "but not unstoppable."

"Only for you, and you alone. Your victory revealed your true nature to me, so I made my preparations to summon you into the digital world and… No, not _make_ you mine. You were always mine. To have you return to my side."

"Mmm," was Ryo's response, closing his eyes. _Yes_ , he was aware now, he could feel it in his bones. This was where he should be. "Do you feel like this?" he asked, stretching again.

"Yes." Millenniummon sounded pleased that Ryo had guessed.

MoonMillenniummon, he knew, without having to use his digivice. The Evil God had digivolved. That was part of what people did for their partners, cause them to digivolve, so Ryo was the reason this had happened.

Ryo should have felt guilty, but he couldn't, but how could he when this was his partner? Maybe helping him become stronger made up for attacking him earlier? He could hope, anyway. In theory, Millenniummon should have become even more dangerous with whatever new powers he'd gained, but he was Ryo's partner, so everything would be fine now.

"I am perfectly aware of everything you feel. The digivolution of the Chosen Children is powered by the emotional and spiritual energies of the human bound to them. You are tuned to respond to the individual pattern of your partner's Digicore and grant them access to your mental energies for digivolution. To improve on the process and give me the data to fine-tune your emotions, I created a device that would mimic my Digicore and used it to gain access to your brain and nervous system to create a two-way resonant link between my core and your brain with more bandwidth than a mere digivice. I put you to sleep and bent time around you: my Dark Seed had all the time it needed to root itself in all of your neurons, soak up your power and blossom. A digivice can be lost or stolen, but it would take a miracle to separate the fully-grown Dark Flower from you, my dear Ryo, and you are my partner. You will never wish to be free of me."

"Of course not," Ryo agreed absently, curling up on the side with the knee that wasn't aching. Yet. "I really do wish for a mattress and some pillows or something, though. And I'm kind of starving," he could tell once he pushed through the everything-is-wonderful to check on his stomach.

 _Yes –_ that was Millenniummon's yes. Not just approval of Ryo's words, but this was proof that Ryo _was_ his partner. Of course his partner would be that wise, even so young. "The first priorities must be food, water, and sleep, because without them a Digimon cannot fight and neither a Digimon nor a human can think. No matter how powerful I become, no matter how powerful I make myself, the weapon that allows me to achieve that power and allows me to wield it effectively is the mind. I've been watching you, Ryo: you already know that you must take care of your weapons. A necessity when one works with inferior Digimon."

Like the victims of Millenniummon's mind control. The ones Ryo freed.

The ones he really couldn't stop freeing.

He might have had to say something, but the darkness around him was moving, the great crystal lifting upwards through the floor and Ryo's body, until he saw the bottom point of it overhead, the dark shadow of a body inside it.

Without his partner in the way, Ryo could see a Megadramon and a Gigadramon carrying a made-up futon and what looked like a table complete with tablecloth. They bowed before their Lord's Destined One, placing their offerings on the ground for his approval.

"Thanks," Ryo said to them, smiling as they flew away like good drones. He wanted to do something, but for now 'something' was, stretching and getting up so he could sit down at the table.

Eating wasn't all that interesting, so after a minute he could feel MoonMillenniummon's attention shifting away from him. For a moment he wanted to tug on him to get it back, but his partner was still _there_ , still wrapped around his mind even if Ryo could only touch his partner's feelings.

Even that was a comfort, but the main reason he could wait to have his partner's full attention back was that the god wasn't going to be happy about the idea of _his_ partner wasting his time visiting Ken, and Ryo wanted a minute to steel himself for that. It wasn't that he was scared…

Huh.

He was actually _less_ worried about angering Millenniummon than he was before, when he was defying an Evil God. Being scared of someone who could freeze time and step on you, or send a Digimon into the internet to _nuke your family_ was called _sanity_.

MoonMillenniummon was his partner. His partner would never hurt him, he thought, and felt that resonate through their bond. No, he would never be able to order Digimon to try to destroy Millenniummon again. His mouth would close and refuse to let the words pass through, and it was hard to quite be certain, when it was impossible to tell what was his own hindbrain and what was Millenniummon's, but he thought he was a little glad.

If MoonMillenniummon wouldn't let him save Ken, though, he'd still have to turn that digivice on himself and hope it worked. Only until he was sure Ken was okay! Then he would come back and apologize and let the dark seed twine through him again so he could feel his partner again, but just the _thought_ of losing this connection, being alone again, was so horrible he couldn't help shuddering, and sensing his pain instantly drew MoonMillenniummon's full attention back to him, the insubstantial crystal descending.

"I'm fine," he reassured his partner. "I just imagined being separated from you, and it hurt." This time the wave of pain was doubled, his and his partner's, and then another of _longing_ crashed over him. "Any chance you could dial down the intensity?" he asked, wincing.

Was it even just knowing the others that made him want a partner so badly? Even if Ryo hadn't know the way Millenniummon did, had he sensed that his partner was _right there_ , so why wasn't he by Ryo's side?

"No," MoonMillenniummon said, a god's decree. "Every drop of power your soul produces is _mine_."

Ryo nodded: yeah, that was true. Digivolution and everything, so Millenniummon did need a direct link to Ryo. Ryo didn't have to feel everything Millenniummon felt just as intensely as he felt it, though… but he _wanted_ to. He didn't want a wall between them, muffling and distorting his partner's presence. He _wanted_ to feel what his partner felt, and it was only fair, wasn't it? Love and protection in exchange for love and power: he had just as much right to his partner's feelings as his partner had to his. "I'll just have to get used to it, then."

"There's no need to consider the possibility of ever being separated from me. By divine decree, I forbid it," and a god of time and dimension had a great deal of power over what did and did not happen. If something happened that he didn't like, the God of Time was quite capable of _unhappening_ it, if Ryo wasn't careful. "You will not allow anyone to steal you away from me either, _my_ Ryo."

"Of course not." He wouldn't _allow_ it, but "What can I do, though? Without Digimon to fight for me, I'm powerless. Are those two going to be mine, by the way? I'd prefer bodyguards who can fit through doors." Partners protected each other, and Ryo did _not_ want the new, more powerful form of the enemy following him into File City. It would scare everyone.

A deep chuckle echoed through the vast room. "Oh, you are _far_ from powerless. I don't intend to let you waste your time on some scavenger hunt, so I will need a few more days to create a replica of your crest. A functional one, unlike the non-functional ones Vamdemon made on the Order of Qinglongmon's equipment after seizing their emptied monastery for his castle – he wanted to find the Child of Light to kill her, not hand her dozens of crests to charge for use against him."

"Crest? Oh, right, the Chosen Children needed those to get their partners to Perfect." And Ryo didn't for some reason. None of them but Agumon and Gabumon had reached Ultimate before. That was weird, when Gennai said that digivolving other people's Digimon wasn't Ryo's power, so it should be impossible to even get them to their adult forms – it was Ken's power, actually. Pity the Crest of Kindness couldn't send power to Ken's own partner.

"That is the least of what they are capable of, but the only survivor of the Order of Qinglongmon was a temple guard, who knew relatively little of the secrets of the gods the artificial humans were created to serve. The Four Holy Beasts, myself and a few who hid in the Dark Ocean or other realms to escape Apocalymon are the only ones left who know what the Chosen Children are truly capable of, my dear Ryo. And _you…_ well, it is only fitting that the partner of a God wields power greater than the Child of Light, who only _channels_ gods." A chuckle grew into a deep booming laugh.

Ryo grinned up at his partner. "While you're working on that, mind if I go take care of something?"

Instant protectiveness. A flash of suspicion of betrayal, there and gone, because even if Ryo had attacked his partner in the past, every fiber of Ryo's body belonged to Millenniummon now. If Ryo decided to become his enemy again, he would know and he'd walk Ryo's body out of there the way he'd sleepwalked him here from Gennai's.

…wait, did that mean Ryo could remotely tap Millenniummon's time control abilities? He could stay up all night on the internet, sleep in all he wanted and never be late for school again. If the partners of evil gods went to school.

He still wanted to do something he knew Millenniummon wouldn't quite like, so "What is it?" his partner asked him (asked! Instead of ordering, and it was weird how touching it was when he knew exactly how odd it was for this Digimon).

"Ken," Ryo confessed. "He got hit with one of these too, didn't he?"

"…Yes, it should be retrieved. The shadow of a core that dissolved into you – hopefully leaving some traces of my knowledge behind – will begin to overwhelm the mind of someone as weak as him. It's possible – unlikely, but possible – that Gennai might realize he contains something significant. He's not capable of breaching the protections on the Dark Seed, but if he called in the Child of Knowledge and he called upon his power… the Dark Seed does not contain all of my knowledge, but even an echo of it would advance their understanding by more than a thousand years."

"Not enough to keep you from countering what they can do with it," Ryo knew, tilting the chair back to look up thoughtfully without getting a crick in his neck… Ow, already had one. So this was why the other kids' partners stayed in Child form most of the time: it was a lot more convenient, as long as they could digivolve in a hurry when they needed to. "In fact, it might even make it easier, since it'd mean you knew exactly what they knew and were likely to try…"

"Your true motivation is concern that even a fraction of my power is enough to shatter your weapon." Millenniummon chuckled. "A bodyguard who can fit through the doors of human dwellings… the Child of Kindness and his Wormmon _would_ make good bodyguards, once sufficiently upgraded. Who would look at them twice?" When they were such obviously fragile, pathetic beings?

"Phew, that's a relief. I was worried you'd be jealous," Ryo confessed.

"I no longer have any need to be jealous. Your heart and every drop of power it contains are mine."

"Of course." That was what all of it was for. It would just be a waste otherwise.

"You will never allow yourself to be used against me."

" _No_ way." Never. Let people harm his _partner?!_

"You will never allow yourself to be stolen from me."

That made Ryo pull in a little, ashamed. "I don't want to be separated from you, but I'm just a kid. Unless you protect me, it's impossible for me to defeat an adult Digimon, forget a Perfect," if Gennai asked Piccolomon to capture him. "I could try to run away," but Piccolomon could fly.

"Impossible." The shadow in the dark crystal laughed. "You've defeated me twice, and you haven't even realized your power, Child of Miracles?"

Ryo looked up. This wasn't his partner's faith in him he felt. This was _Millenniummon's_ certainty, meaning he might even know what he was talking about instead of just believing in him the way Wormmon believed in Ken.

"Impossible," the god scoffed. "That word is the refuge of small minds cursing their powerlessness. I use impossibility to limit others, but allow _myself_ to be confined by it? Impossibility is a locked door, and you, my dear Ryo, my _only_ worthy partner, are the keeper of the keys."

* * *

 _The anime's Dark Seed took a lot longer to bloom, but it was designed for Ryo and his power and mind, not Ken's. A digivolution link can power the evolution of a Digimon from in-training (I do prefer that to Baby II for dialogue purposes, so I will be keeping it even though I'm mainly switching to sub terms) to Ultimate in seconds; it can probably augment a different kind of program if the program has the key to access it – see the D-Reaper upsetting Juri so it could undergo a Dark Digivolution._

 _I'm still working through Adventure on the massive marathon, but from what I remember of how the Dark Seed worked on Ken and what it_ didn't _stop him from doing/thinking… Some of the stuff that seems like Ken was made to think a specific thing is_ probably _a relic/distorted memory of the original history before the Timey Wimey Ball. The Digimon Emperor's belief that the Digital World was all fake, a game even as Digimon are made to die for the sake of this game is quite painful in the context of the third Wonderswan game._

 _From the Digivolution footage in Adventure, Adult level, it looks like Digivolution energy transfer works something like a lightning strike, in terms of ionized channels/relatively weak upward feeler from the ground prompting the cloud to send down a massive amount of power._

 _Knowing that, setting up a link that constantly sends the Digimon's emotions to the human & harvests all energy the human generates _seems _like a good idea, for getting a constant maximum power flow from your digivolution battery. However, there's a difference between 'being able to flick on a light switch' and 'sticking your finger in an electrical socket.'_


	3. Invasive Species

_In the movie, Ryo was hiking in Tibet when Diablomon attacked, but the game shows that Ken called him for tech support when the Digimon appeared on his computer screen, and that's better for tying the cast together._

 _Just like partnerships, the various characters' relationships are a big part of what made Digimon worth watching for me._

 _In the first game, Ryo would have had the older kids' veteran Digimon advising him, as well as Gennai and Piccolomon, and I would assume they'd know he needed the help. Piccolomon didn't get the opportunity to do a lot of training with the Adventure kids, because keeping them in one place meant they weren't finding their crests and the Eighth Chosen Child, but that wouldn't have been as much of a consideration with Ryo – rather training would be what he'd need to survive and free the others.  
_

* * *

When Ryo came into the bedroom at Gennai's after being missing for hours, Ken shrank back against the wall. "Ryo… one of your eyes. It's red," he warned his friend, sitting up in the bed and pulling Wormmon closer.

"Huh," Ryo said, mildly interested but no more than that. Like some bit of trivia that came up during small talk: not especially important or relevant, but good to know. "Ken, I need to see the back of your neck."

"So you did get hit on the head! Piccolomon thought that was what happened when you wandered off and didn't come back! I was looking for you for almost an hour, you know!" V-mon scolded him. "I'm only here because I had to check on Ken and Wormmon!"

Maybe V-mon was right and that was all it was, but Ken didn't think that getting hit on the head would change the color of the iris.

"I'm fine," Ryo said, smiling down at the little blue dragon. "Thanks for helping me keep an eye on Ken while he's recovering."

Ken scooted his knees up closer to his chest and held Wormmon tight. "You look like part of you is somewhere else." And if part of Ryo was somewhere else, then what was here in its place?

Ryo smiled at him, pleased Ken had noticed? "I finally met my partner." The light in his eyes made even that red eye look gentle.

"Your partner!?" V-mon was so excited he bounced in place like an in-training. "Who is it? I bet they're a dinosaur like me and Agumon! Oh, if your partner finally showed up, then maybe _my_ partner will be here soon! Won't that be great, Wormmon? We'll _definitely_ be able to keep you and Ken safe with our partners to help out, you won't have to worry at all anymore!"

Wormmon poked his head up over Ken's knees to look at Ryo. "Are they too big to come inside?" Was that why Ryo's partner wasn't with him? Then the little caterpillar drooped. "I want to meet your partner, but I can't leave Ken."

"Don't worry, Wormmon, Ken will be fine," Ryo assured him. "I just need to get a look at his neck."

Something was wrong.

Ken blinked innocently at Ryo, some part of him wondering at himself as he did it. He needed to be a big kid to protect Wormmon, he couldn't act cute or everyone would worry about him. "But I'm getting headaches, not neckaches." He wasn't supposed to let anyone look at his neck. But… why? And this was Ryo, he told himself, hands reaching up to touch his forehead as he felt another headache start, coming from the back of his neck to right behind his eyes. "Ryo," he said, knowing he sounded like a really little kid but _help_.

 _Ryo_ something echoed in the back of his mind.

Ryo's hand patted him on the top of the head as the older Chosen Child came around to the side of the bed. "It'll be okay, Ken. Just lean forward."

"Yes, Ryo," he said, eyes closing, because if it was _Ryo_ who asked… He shivered as he felt something deathly cold on the back of his neck – No. Something cold and hateful coming out of the back of his neck.

When it was gone, he opened his eyes and looked up to see Ryo holding a spiky ball of darkness.

" _That_ was in Ken?!" Wormmon flailed his little legs. "Are you okay, Ken?" he asked worriedly. "Oh, I'm a terrible partner…"

"No Wormmon, you're not!" Ken insisted, hugging him.

"How am I going to get rid of this thing, it's too powerful to leave lying around… Oh, right. It won't hurt me, so…" Ryo pressed it against the front of his chest. He jerked, eyes widening, and when he removed his hand the thing was gone. " _Wow_ that was cold!" Brr. "Good thing I got it out of you."

"Ryo, that thing was evil, you can't-" Ken's eyes widened, horrified. "There's one in you too."

"Ken, you got that thing stuck in you when you pushed me out of the way. You tried to save me: I'm just returning the favor." Ryo sat down on the bed next to him. "I'm fine, really. My partner wouldn't hurt me… Well, yeah, unless he doesn't understand that doing something would hurt me. Like dropping a bomb on all my friends and family…"

Oh, Ken realized, calming down but only a bit. "Your partner is Diablomon?" Well… if he was a baby Digimon, or a Digimon Millenniummon messed up by experimenting on him, then he might be nice underneath? Especially if Ryo was his partner.

Ken had called Ryo over when he saw the Digimon that became Diablomon on his screen. Ryo, not Osamu, because Osamu was always busy and never had time for him. He'd also get mad if he found out that Ken was on his computer. Ryo had fixed the computer before when Ken messed it up so Osamu didn't find out.

Had he maybe been the one to show Ryo his partner? He knew that Gennai was looking for Ryo's partner, because it was sad that Ryo, that _everyone_ didn't have a partner like Wormmon.

Ryo looked guilty, well, trying to be shifty but failing to manage to actually tell Ken a reassuring lie.

"I know that look," Ken accused him. "That's when you and Gennai don't want to tell me how bad it is."

Ryo let out a small laugh. "Smart kid… You should go home and take Wormmon with you."

"You don't want me to help." Ken pouted. After they watched the fight with Diablomon, Osamu would have been angry at Ken asking questions, but Ryo was the one to explain that Digimon were real, living creatures, that they did get hurt when they fought and it wasn't a game. That meant Ken had to help, even if he knew he wasn't a very good substitute for Taichi, after Taichi was frozen instead of him. Talking to V-mon through the communicator Gennai built to talk to the other dimension made Wormmon worry too, since he wasn't strong enough to protect a _Chosen Child_ , and V-mon was so much braver than him. Ken had to tell Wormmon that he didn't _want_ another partner, even if he needed to let other Digimon fight for him too so Wormmon didn't get hurt.

"You can't help," Ryo said apologetically. "All you could do if you stuck around is worry, and I'd feel bad because I don't want to worry you. If you go to the real world, it'll all be over by the time you've let Wormmon explore your room and shown him around your neighborhood, so you can do something with your partner instead of sitting around doing nothing."

Ken frowned at him.

Ryo glanced away and scratched the back of his head, then gave him an apologetic look. "Tell you what. If you go to the real world for three hours, so you can say hi to your family and just take a break from fighting for a bit, then if everything isn't fine by the time you get back, you can say 'I told you so' and I'm not allowed to try to keep you from helping ever again. Deal?"

Ken thought about it for a moment. "Deal." Ryo hadn't said that Ken couldn't do it, just that he was afraid of Ken and Wormmon getting hurt. He and Gennai had both encouraged Ken, when Ken worried that he wasn't a very good substitute for someone like Taichi who'd saved the world and could digivolve his partner all the way to Ultimate. So he might be telling the truth instead of just treating Ken like a kid.

Ryo smiled. "Let me check my bag, I brought some money." When he went to Ken's, to get something to eat on the way back. "Think you can buy some snacks for Wormmon and V-mon for me?"

* * *

"Phew," Ryo said once Ken and Wormmon had gone through the digi-port, sitting down next to it. It was a good thing Ken was up to walking here: if he wasn't, if the Dark Seed had done something to his nervous system, Ryo would have had to bring Ken to his partner and get him to _fix_ it.

He _would_ if his partner asked, Ryo knew it, but he'd take the opportunity to study a Chosen Child (that he didn't care about) more since Ryo had freed his other test subjects and he'd terrify Ken in the process. He'd absolutely scare Ken _worse_ because Ryo liked him. His partner's possessions were much less likely to get broken if they fled in terror at the mere mention of the Evil God's name.

He should go back through the digi-port to Millenniummon's palace, but the sun was shining. A simulation of the sun, anyway. It was warm on his shoulders, and while his partner would feel every second he was gone, he wouldn't begrudge Ryo time spent indulging himself, even if part of him was still annoyed that his plan to summon his partner to his side had dragged in Ken. Ryo was the key to defeating Millenniummon, just as Hikari was the key to defeating Vamdemon. What if Ken was summoned to the Digital World to deny Millenniummon his prize?

Ken was gone now, and Ryo wasn't following him to the human world. He hadn't lied: Enough time would pass here before Ken got back for everything to be settled one way or another. Millenniummon would conclude that Ken had only been summoned for the strength he could give Ryo's Digimon, start looking at the kid as a potential asset instead of a threat to his bond with his partner, and Ryo would no longer be the only person who was safe from his partner's policy of eliminating all potential threats with maximum collateral damage.

One was a start, right? Two with Wormmon, even.

The sun on his back, warming the fabric of his shirt. The sounds of File City just over the hill, footsteps of Adult Digimon instead of the rumble of traffic. The smell of crushed grass underneath him – File City was so much less barren than the last time he was here, and Gennai said it would get better as the Digital World continued to recover from Spiral Mountain and Apocalymon's devastation. The grass wasn't alive like the Digimon were, but it was part of the life of the Digital World itself, or something along those lines?

Now he felt bad for sitting on it, after his partner did so much to hurt the Digital World.

When he first got dragged into this place, even though he'd looked up at the sky during the Odaiba Incident he'd thought it was a dream at first. After Agumon's explanation, he'd been even more convinced it had to be a dream until he was led through File City to Gennai's.

This was a real world. People _lived_ here, but way too many of them would die here if he couldn't do something about his partner.

Agumon, Tentomon, Palmon, Patamon, little Wormmon… It wasn't just the Dark Flower, it was knowing everyone's partners that made him feel like this at the thought of fighting his own, but fighting wasn't about hurting people, was it? It was because Agumon was so scared for Taichi, knowing his partner was in the hands of someone Agumon had killed. If Millenniummon was even a little less cold and calculating, if he bothered to have personal feelings about pests like the Chosen Children, he would have wanted revenge.

Ryo had been shocked to find himself in another world, scared once he realized how dangerous the enemy really was, but that was _nothing_ compared to what poor Agumon had been going through.

It was because there were people in File City, and the Digimon Millenniummon forced to attack Ryo were people too, most of them only fighting because they were under his control and didn't have a choice.

Millenniummon thought that fighting came from the will to either hurt the enemy or destroy them, get the worthless out of his way (and Ryo's partner could never be worthless to him). That wasn't how Ryo felt at all, and that was why Millenniummon wouldn't realize, even now, that Ryo was willing to fight his partner. That tying Ryo's heart and his core together like this just meant that Ryo _had_ to stop him. He couldn't hurt his partner, but he was going to find some way to fight him.

Feeling the coldness in the other Dark Seed proved it. The keys were just echoes of Millenniummon's core. They melted away, leaving only traces of knowledge behind in Ryo, but Ken… That cold, that willingness to weigh his mind down until it drowned, to convert him into just an echo of Millenniummon so he'd be something less unworthy… That was what would have happened to Ryo, if Millenniummon's core didn't find him suitable just the way he was. That was what would happen to _everyone_ else under Millenniummon's control, even if he'd turn them into drones instead of little obedient mini-mes, if Ryo couldn't _do something_.

Millenniummon had been evil for at least as long as his name claimed, but the tie to his partner was melting him too, Ryo knew it. Even if partners weren't _alike_ necessarily – Ryo had met Jou and Gomamon – Ryo knew how his heart felt about hurting people or even watching people be hurt, and through him Millenniummon would feel that too.

Walking on a leg that didn't think it was a good idea for him to walk on it? That wasn't anything compared to how it would hurt if Ken died because he couldn't protect him. If Ken died because Ryo didn't do enough to keep him alive.

In theory, it was a good thing that Millenniummon might have a conscience now, right? If he was able to regret hurting people, even if it was only because of Ryo? _Anything_ that made him stop hurting everyone like this should be a good thing, but Millenniummon was his partner. So Ryo had to protect him. So Ryo had to _stop_ him _,_ before he could hurt more people. Before he could feel the pain of knowing that someone was hurt because of you.

The sun was warm, this world was alive around him (for now), and it was one thing to realize Millenniummon had to be stopped and another to do it, otherwise the other kids would have handled it and Ryo would never have been called into the Digital World to meet his partner. Before, he'd stopped Millenniummon by helping other Digimon fight him, making it possible for them to win was how Gennai put it, but he couldn't… could he?

For his partner?

Without his partner finding out about it, and freezing him in time until the conquest was complete, if it bothered his dear partner so much? Ryo might be exempt from Millenniummon just… well, not stepping on him anymore, MoonMillenniummon didn't have feet, but Millenniummon had firm views on obstacles and their complete obliteration. Ryo would be removed. He'd probably be packed away carefully somewhere, but with his heart frozen in time Millenniummon's would stay frozen, and Ryo would wake up to find that millions of people were dead, Digimon _and_ humans. Probably way more. Millenniummon's conquest strategies came from the Digital World, where massive civilian casualties in a conquered territory didn't mean he was now out of subjects since they'd just come back to life, ideally with vague memories telling them not to screw with him.

"Ryo!" he heard V-mon call behind him.

He stood, putting one foot on the metallic circle of the digiport before he half-turned to face V-mon. The little blue dinosaur was waving at him as he ran towards him. Gennai came walking a little more slowly behind the Child with the help of his cane, while Piccolomon trailed him, gaze flitting between his not-partner and their destination before flying back down the hill, out of sight.

Piccolomon must have noticed Ryo's red eye, but he didn't show any surprise or tell Gennai to stay back. One of the greatest tacticians and martial artists in the Digital World: Ryo'd gotten his knuckles rapped with that spear a few times when he asked for advice, even if there hadn't really been time for formal training, just hours snatched here and there. Piccolomon might have big, innocent-looking eyes, but they weren't any more _innocent_ than Gennai's wrinkled old smiling ones.

"So, V-mon told us that you met your partner?" Gennai asked. Piccolomon flew away as Gennai walked forward: going for help or planning an ambush?

Ryo pulled out his digivice and showed it to them. He wanted to smile, wanted his friends to be happy he'd finally met his partner, but… not when MoonMillenniummon was like this, they wouldn't be.

"Hmm, I've never seen one quite like that before, but it does seem to be a digivice." Gennai nodded, quite casual and grandfatherly and you might mistake him for a sage if you didn't recognize what he was wearing as a much-repaired set of Temple Guard combat gear. Artificial humans were the weakest beings in the Digital World: they had their techniques, like setting digital barriers, but someone like Gennai, like Ryo before he knew about his power, had to survive on the battlefield through cleverness.

"Did you know?" Ryo asked the old man who had helped him, given him a place to stay. Between both times he'd fought Millenniummon he'd lived with Gennai and Piccolomon for about half a year, and he thought he knew the old man. The one good part about being summoned back to the Digital World was seeing him, Piccolomon and Agumon again. V-mon was a good kid, and now he had his partner, but he remembered Gennai telling him he'd grown.

Really though, it had only been a few months, so unless he was in a growth spurt and hadn't noticed? Artificial humans didn't have childhoods, though, so maybe the Chosen Children getting taller at _all,_ even not all that much, fascinated Gennai?

It was like having another grandfather, old and in need of help, and a sensei in Piccolomon. Now he had to let them know that they couldn't trust him anymore. It was the right thing to do, but that didn't make it any better.

"The identity of your partner? I have spent most of my life trying to unite the Chosen Children with their partners," Gennai said, mildly, making it clear that he was only refraining from taking offense because he was too old and mature, but Ryo really should know better. "It is a sacred duty, and as I am the only one left to discharge it..."

Ryo hesitated, eyes catching on the necklace of dogtags Gennai had worn as long as Ryo knew him. It was Tailmon who told him the story behind them. "Even… even when he took so much from you?"

He saw Gennai's hands tense on his cane, white-knuckled for a moment. "…Piemon?"

Ryo shook his head. No. Worse.

Gennai closed his eyes for a moment, but only a moment. "What did he do to you?" he asked Ryo sadly. "I detected it when you returned Ken to the human world. Millenniummon used his power to sever the ties between the Human and Digital Worlds when he split the Digital World in two. Only he could have drawn the Human World into close enough alignment with ours again to open that digiport."

"What, Millenniummon?" V-mon asked, looking between Gennai and Ryo. Gennai had to be kidding, right? "Ryo and the bad guy?" No way!

Even if he'd known him only half the time he'd known Gennai, it still hurt to let V-mon down too.

"I used his power, the way he used mine to digivolve to MoonMillenniummon," Ryo said. "He's planning to digivolve again, to the most powerful form of Millenniummon he designed, but then he'll be even more powerful than Apocalymon. He'll have to create a seal first so it doesn't tear the Digital World apart." Not that this would buy them much time, when the God could turn a second into all the time he needed.

"…And you would lend him your power for this?" Gennai asked, and if Ryo was a little less experienced he might have remained focused on the friend betrayed, and missed the sound of humming wings when it was quiet enough to nearly fade into the hum of the digi-port beneath his foot.

"I just sent away the only Chosen Child who could have used their digivice against me." Taichi got here before Millenniummon used his power to control the dimensions, but he'd been frozen in time along with Agumon. If he could come up with an excuse to get his partner to unseal Taichi? Maybe the others could help if he could keep his partner from _stopping_ them from helping: what could he say, though? He knew his partner's opinion on enemies, he'd have to pick a reason that wouldn't just end up with Taichi dead instead of frozen.

The hum of wings cut off - Above him!

Ryo froze time and looked up to see Piccolomon's diving spear barely a half-meter away, blunt end down and aimed at Ryo's head to knock him out.

It could have worked if Ryo couldn't freeze time: the digi-port took a couple seconds to engage even warmed up like this. He'd thought that Piccolomon would go for his wrist, to separate him from the digivice that _would_ have been what was controlling the digi-port if the Dark Flower wasn't a wireless connection to his partner and his own link to the Digital World's systems. If MoonMillenniummon's thoughts couldn't interface with the Digital World (like the Holy Beasts: it was part of what qualified someone as a god), his partner would never have accepted a digivolution that wasn't solid enough to work a keyboard.

Right: saying that they'd need a digivice to keep him from borrowing Millenniummon's power would have told Piccolomon as well as Gennai that there was a control device inside him that could only be burned out with a digivice, so the digivice in his hand _wasn't_ the only thing tying him to his new partner. The eye was a hint, but he'd confirmed it for them.

Good, he'd wanted them to know they couldn't trust him anymore. He still liked both of them, but their enemy was now the person Ryo had to put first, he thought, his hand touching the back of his neck as he thought of his partner.

How were the other kids okay with not seeing their partners for months, or not knowing when they'd see them again? His parents were great, putting up with him spending more and more time on the computer they'd gotten him talking with Koushiro and the others, but if he had to stay in the Digital World to keep his partner from hurting anyone else? He absolutely would, if that was all it took.

…wasn't there a world like the Digital World where _nobody_ lived?

* * *

Ken thought his brother would be angry when Wormmon looked up at him and said "Hello," all polite and interested to meet another human. And Ken's brother! Wormmon thought that if they were Ken's family they had to be nice.

Osamu's face paled when he saw Wormmon, closing the door behind him only to fall back against it, looking utterly defeated. "Damn, I hoped it was mine…"

Osamu had used a bad word? He must really want the digivice! Ken gripped it tight. "No, it's mine! Not yours." Although Osamu could maybe have borrowed it if Ryo could borrow Taichi's, but Ken didn't want him to. "I need it for Wormmon, he's my partner!"

"Hello," Wormmon said again, padding closer to Osamu on his little legs. "I'm Wormmon, and this is my partner Ken." Wormmon still said that as though it was the luckiest thing ever, because Ken was the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to anyone. "What's your name?"

"Ichijoji Osamu…" Ken's brother said reflexively. "Partner. A digivice and a partner." Osamu scrambled to his feet and ran to the computer. ChildofWiz, CocoaTerrier, FullMetalLabcoat, even CrypticOldGuy: _Everyone_ in the Odaiba Incident forums and chatrooms had to be online, after another Digimon attacked the internet. "There's Ryo, even if he wouldn't take that digivice away. I guess he's closer, at least." Public transportation was still jammed with people trying to get out of the city after the missile. It hadn't exploded, thank goodness, but it might have cracked when it landed in the river. The government said there wasn't any danger and a team was properly disposing of it safely, but a lot of people were still heading for the hills in case there were _more_ monsters online.

When they didn't know the half of it.

"Ryo's taking care of everything," Ken told him. "He sent me and Wormmon to get snacks for V-mon. We already beat the bad guy," he said proudly.

"…So you really were fighting."

"How did you know about Digivices?" Ken asked, his younger brother already having learned to change the subject, even if he was still looking at Osamu suspiciously like he expected his brother to try to grab it out of his pocket or something.

"The Odaiba Incident chatrooms. Mom and Dad didn't want me wasting my time on it, but it was a big mystery and I was interested, so I looked into it." Monsters, all over the world, making electronics not work, causing national disasters: what was the _point_ of being a genius if he didn't do more with it than get on TV? They weren't that far from Odaiba: what if his parents had gotten put to sleep, what if he and his brother were rounded up? "When that thing," the digivice, "came out of the computer, I recognized it from the sketches ChildofWiz posted – they claimed to know what happened during the incident, and no one could trace where they posted their messages from so…" So it was possible they really did have something to do with a Digital World. Or a government cover-up, or someone from the government wanting to get information out so people could protect themselves without being exposed as the leak.

"When that thing came out of my computer New Year's Eve, I PMed ChildofWiz with a picture of it. He said there were two other kids who got contacted by the Digital World that night, and it was the one who didn't get one of those things who actually got dragged in, but you nearly got dragged into something _really bad_ , and I needed to keep that thing away from you and let him know right away if anything else involving the Digital World happened around you. I got a real name and a phone number, and they _don't_ give those out on those sites." So it really was serious. There wasn't a country in the world that escaped what Japan called the Odaiba Incident unscathed. There were _rewards_ for information, and the real names of people like ChildofWiz who had that information. "He managed to find out who I was, and told Ryo since it might be more than a coincidence that he was in my class."

If Chosen Children got summoned in groups, then he'd _hoped_ that his connection to Ryo meant the digivice was his, not Ken's.

They weren't friends – Osamu didn't have time for friends, especially with someone who was second or third in the class in most subjects. They were _competition_. His parents had sat him down and warned him when he brought Ryo over to look at the digivice that the other boy might just want study tips or to sabotage Osamu's studies, and what would happen if Osamu came in second in his class on a test? He might lose the media attention when that attention meant he had a better chance of getting into good schools.

But his parents didn't care if someone from his class made friends with _Ken,_ apparently. His mother was home all day and hadn't told him Ryo was visiting while he was at cram school? He was _that_ out of touch with his brother's life? He was an idiot to think that he could protect him from being pulled into the Digital World when he was never around, but that was why he'd risked telling people online that he had a digivice. As long as he said it was his, then if anyone got experimented on it should have been him, not Ken, and getting to sit around in a lab for awhile sounded like the closest he'd get to a vacation, really.

Osamu's eyes narrowed. "If Ryo didn't send you home right away? I'm going to _kill him_." He knew where Ryo lived too: he'd insisted on Ryo showing him a Digivice first (although Ryo said it wasn't his either) before showing him the one that came to their apartment in case Ryo was just jealous of him and planned to turn them in or something.

"Don't be mad!" Ken protested. "We were in a different dimension from Ryo most of the time, he couldn't get to us to send us home! He helped us a lot just like Gennai, didn't he Wormmon?"

The monster bug looking at him with big anime eyes nodded.

Osamu looked at him, at both of them. What was going to happen to his little brother?

He'd wanted that digivice to be his. If someone was going to be dragged into the Digital World over and over to fight a monster that would not die, shouldn't it be him, or what was the point of being a genius? It should be him. Not his little brother, this little kid too kind for his own good.

* * *

 _Osamu wanting the digivice_ could _just be 'I want to be the hero/it's mine,' but given the other older brothers in this series, and how many people died (like, oh, almost everyone who was in an airplane at the time) during the final arc of Digimon Adventure, it's probably a more complicated mix of that and taking the bullet._

 _Osamu is aware that just like his parents are smothering him, they're neglecting Ken. I'd say it's demonstrated that he tries to find time to spend with Ken, but various comments indicate he didn't really have free time for much of anything and his parents weren't interested in letting him get a word in edgewise. The muse wants to get away from the pressure to the point he subconsciously actually did want to get dragged into another world where he was allowed to get angry with people._

 _He knows it's not fair to be jealous of how their parents leave Ken alone, but emotions have nothing to do with fairness._

 _I could have sworn there were official screennames for Koushiro and Wallace, but I just watched the movie and tried hitting pause and couldn't find anything. Is there anything in an episode I haven't gotten to in the marathon yet?_

 _For now, CocoaTerrier is Wallace, for his partners – he's had them since the Digimon appeared at Hikarigaoka and the other kids got Chosen. This predates the FullMetal Alchemist manga – it and one of the_ Digimon Reference Book _bios are both making the same reference. Since Gennai can use the internet to communicate, I'm amused by him going on there and being about as helpful as he is in the first half of Adventure, more to learn about current human culture and find out what they think about the Digital World. He's still in contact with Koushiro, and if Koushiro said Gennai knew what he was talking about when it came to Digimon, that'd get him some authority, I would think._

 _He's doing better than he was during Adventure so he's less senile, but the senile act would help cover up how he's lived in a world populated by Digimon instead of humans._


	4. The Force That Cracks Concrete

The laptop was only the human-sized interface: the computer was the entire palace, all the walls around them filled with flowing digicode.

Millenniummon researching something was nice to feel: still hunting prey, and for him creating a new device was creating someone else's death, but it made Ryo's partner happy without anyone actually getting hurt.

Teaching was even better.

Telling Ryo about Mugendramon and the other Dark Masters' battle with the Four Holy Beasts, defeating and sealing gods of the Digital World before becoming a god himself? Remembered battle, remembered victory, a way to show off for Ryo.

MoonMillenniummon was actually a little miffed that there wasn't a lot he could do to show off for Ryo, strength-wise. Ryo _knew_ he was powerful, normally literally invincible, so for him to go out and kill someone, even the Holy Beasts, wouldn't prove anything. He'd taken the digital world apart and put it back together back when he was Mugendramon. It was kind of… cute, that his partner wanted to impress him. Thinking about it made Ryo feel the kind of contentment he'd woken with, sensing that his partner was here, waiting for Ryo to wake so patiently, knowing that it would be worth it.

His partner's _knowledge_ , though, the things he'd figured out? If only he didn't keep using his discoveries to kill and enslave people.

Looking up at him, Ryo let himself dwell on it for a minute, the combination of awe, pride and love that went with the thought _My partner is amazing_. Because he _was,_ even if Ryo wished it wasn't so… Wished he could feel this way without having to feel sad that his partner did such terrible things with his power.

He felt those two heads smiling in the dark crystal, and the same feeling was returned to him only slightly bloody: MoonMillenniummon's partner was a prize beyond price, and oh, how they would hunt together, the secret knowledge that would be dragged into the light and the worlds that would be lain at their feet.

His mind insisted on imagining the sensation of a whispered promise in his ear, a brief kiss to his cheek as he pulled away from Ryo's side to return to his own work. It was getting to be too long since he'd seen sunlight again, and how long had it been since he last _touched_ anyone? He was really, really regretting destroying Millenniummon's body, even if it made his partner stronger for the rebirth. He could have been held in a clawed hand, lay down on a leathery shoulder. He could feel his partner's warmth in his body, but not on his skin.

 _Need_ always brought his partner's full focus, and feeling him touch the Dark Flower blooming in his nerves helped, but not much longer now, oh not much longer.

He knew it was _possible_ , anything was possible, but possible and likely were two different things and he could _not_ fail his partner.

Three bands of golden digicode wrapped around his finger. One of seven things he'd let Millenniummon teach him how to make, that filled the dark god's core with emotions ranging from indulgent fondness of a student's first promising steps to murderous glee.

This was the one that mattered.

"A pity that human bodies seem to need touch to feel that they are connected to others. You should not have to feel that you are without a partner when I am here, Ryo. Not now that you are mine," his partner sounded regretful. "It is one thing to strengthen our bond, but to alter a human brain so it does not require touch risks damaging it. I will need test subjects. If you suffer too much, I will freeze you in time until I have conquered the human world." Giving him as many potential test subjects as there were survivors.

"No," Ryo said, alarmed. "Don't, please? If I'm there, frozen in time, not answering you, _you'll_ feel alone. I can handle this: it's only feeling a little like… you're far away. It's better than not having a partner at all, and I could take that."

"Are you certain, dear Ryo? There is no need for you to suffer my absence anymore, and suffering for my sake…" When a Digimon was meant to _protect_ their partner from all harm? Ryo felt his partner's instinctive distress and it made him want to cave, but he _had_ to stay awake. Had to _do something_.

"It's part of what partners do for each other," Ryo knew. "I don't want to be useless when you're doing something important to you. I need to be there for this. I want to be there for _you_."

With luck MoonMillenniummon would think the apprehension was because Ryo was afraid of being weak, of not proving himself worthy of his partner instead of afraid _for_ his partner. It was maybe a little too easy to put aside those fears and the fear his plan – such as it was – would be discovered when he felt Millenniummon's spirit wrap around him, coil under his skin and smile to hear his heartbeat.

That dark and deep affection didn't _demand_ his full attention, it was just impossible not to drown in it. Not to sink down onto the bed and curl up, only barely conscious enough to avoid kicking the laptop. It was possessiveness, it was calculation of just how valuable Ryo and his power were to Millenniummon but it was also love, Ryo _knew_ it. MoonMillenniummon's darkness didn't keep Ryo from feeling his wild joy that this treasure was here, was _his,_ the same happiness to be with his partner he'd seen in Wormmon when Ken held him out to the camera to introduce him to Ryo in the other dimension. A dragon who had just stolen the Crown Jewels couldn't possibly be any more pleased with his new treasures than Millenniummon was with his acquisition of his partner.

It was almost ridiculous – he wasn't that special – except Ryo had met other people and their partners, seen Agumon's reunion with Taichi. He finally had a partner who felt that way about him. It was impossible not to return those feelings. He couldn't even try, not when he knew for certain they were there. If Millenniummon had just told them they were partners, then Ryo would have thought that the evil god didn't, _couldn't_ care about anyone like this. That he'd _never_ have a partner like Agumon or V-mon.

He couldn't let MoonMillenniummon digivolve again, not just yet, but the reason the link went both ways was that it was a cry from the Digimon's heart that caused their partner to respond, and rain down power in answer. MoonMillenniummon was insubstantial so he had to feed on data now, and without Ryo he would have had to get it from other Digimon so this was better, right? Even with the risk. His partner had overwhelmed Chimairamon's mind and the minds of more than a dozen other Digimon to get this powerful, but Ryo was here now, and his partner didn't need to hurt people to grow stronger anymore. Maybe he eventually might even be able to convince his partner to release them, just because it would make him feel better, and he _loved_ his partner.

Darkness and cruelty and razor-sharp brilliance and _love_ , he loved him so much even though it hurt that his partner hurt so many people, that he was hated and with good reason when…

"My ambrosia," his partner said, savoring every word the way he savored Ryo's power, the taste and data of his emotions.

His partner _loved him_ , and when his own soul responded, Ryo felt the tipping point between so much and _too much_. His whole body shuddered with the force of the emotions consuming him, the energy flooding through him. The ache in his chest spread to his stomach, began to expand and it _hurt_ as his hands clawed into the sheets, it was scraping him raw, burning him away with each breath, he _loved him so much_ the power tore out of him, and-

His partner's love was replaced with concern, and without his other half's love reflected back at him the pressure halved, eased. He still felt like blood was pouring out of him, but it wasn't tearing its way out of him anymore. He may have whimpered: it _hurt_ , but some of it was confusion. He was hurting because of his partner, and now he was barely feeling a shadow of the love his partner had felt for him a second ago: why? The part of him that knew Millenniummon's core like it was nothing but his missing piece come home _didn't understand_.

"You are still a Chosen _Child_ , not even an Adult yet, and your power is vast. If you channel too much of it you will hurt yourself, and that is the last thing I want, my Destined One. Your ability to wield your power will evolve in time," his partner assured him.

"Too much already. Hurts," he said, and shuddered, curling up, forehead and closed eyes pressed against the bed, not looking into the darkness that was his partner. Even if he'd rather have a partner he could hold, like Agumon and V-mon, that darkness was still his partner, so if he looked at it he'd feel that love.

He felt his partner's concern and _regret_ , like the back of a clawed hand gently brushing his cheek. He wished he knew what his partner's child form was, so he could imagine it at least. "Be careful, my Destined One. You don't have to feed me yourself. Your power is vast, but your ability to channel it safely? Don't strain yourself."

His partner was loving him again, but it was somehow warm and soothing, a balm after the passionate adoration, the manic glee of realizing that someone like Ryo _existed,_ that this treasure was his to have and keep forever. Ryo let himself feel tired and hurt, let himself keep soaking it in, instead of trying to bury the pain so he could return his partner's emotion and let him feel loved. He was hurt and his partner wanted to take care of him now, so it was okay to be selfish.

"Were you pushing yourself for me?" his partner asked, watching him and ready to scold.

"Yes." Of course. He'd pushed himself for Agumon, for Ken: when he'd fought a god for someone he'd just met, of course he had to do everything he could to help his _partner_.

"You are a child and I am a being that surpasses the other gods of the Digital World. Your power is sweet, and I savor your adoration, but I don't need it… Well. Perhaps a little," Millenniummon admitted, and laughed. Not an evil laugh meant to intimidate, but a delighted, almost-giggle that was almost startled out of him by the realization that, "If you were anyone else this would be a weakness," anyone else he would resent it, "But I knew I had to have you before I realized your true nature. I do seem to need you here, my partner. But that is all I _need_ from you, and you are human," Millenniummon reminded him. "Young and fragile. You must not strain yourself."

"It just happened. Maybe love me a little less?" he joked, but regretted it a soon as he did. Not that, please?

A dark chuckle made him relax again. "If you were anyone else that would be easy, but it seems there are limits to what I can do even for the sake of my Destined One. When you are older, perhaps? Yes, your capacity to bear the power of passionate love should increase once you've reached your adult form."

"What if it doesn't?" he asked quietly. "What if I get weaker? I mean, it's Chosen _Children_ for a reason, probably."

His partner laughed, and it was oddly gentle, no mocking in it at all. "Do you really think that _time_ will steal your power from you, _my_ Destined One?" When time was his partner's domain, or part of it, and his partner loved him?

"Right," he said, relieved.

"Even if your further evolutions don't increase your ability to call on raw power, your skill at tactics and the number of weapons you possess will only increase." It wasn't the band on his finger that tingled, but the skin under it, to draw it to his attention. Millenniummon had internet access and knew the symbolism of a band like that. As long as he didn't realize that it kind of _was_ appropriate, not just a way to camouflage something… not that people Ryo's age should be wearing rings anyway in the real world, but the Digital World's ideas of maturity were as different from human ones as their perception of death. 'Evolutions' instead of 'growing up.'

"You destroyed my armies twice," MoonMillenniummon said fondly. "Yet the tedium of replacing them only reminded me of you. I am very pleased to have you as the source of my power. Did you really think I would throw you aside for someone like the Children of Light or Destiny? If I had any interest in the Child of Light at all, I would have placed one of the alpha design Dark Seeds into her before you rescued her, in the hope that the damage the still-flawed design did to her mind would make it possible to reformat her into something less pathetic. But, by the time you defeated Vamdemon, even though at that point I thought you were called to defeat me instead of to be mine, I already found you far more suitable. I hoped that the Child of Courage's leadership meant he had potential despite his weakness relative to the other 'Yagami,' but alas." Like Hikari, Taichi had escaped the coldness that would have consumed Ken only because he'd bored Millenniummon.

"The others all were helpless without their digivices and partners, but you were able to lead, to fight and gather allies on your own. Skills it seemed they never bothered to learn came naturally to you, skills that would make you far more useful to me as a member of my forces, able to increase the power of my slaves. I decided to create an artificial Digimon, programmed to be loyal to me, to act as your partner. Then I found myself programming that Digimon with more and more power. I found myself giving Armageddemon's core access to a level of power I'd planned to keep for myself, because obviously only that level of Digimon could be worthy of _you_."

"Armageddemon?" Ryo wondered. A Digimon on MoonMillenniummon's level?

"Ah yes. 'Diablomon,'" the darkness chuckled, and this time there was cruel anticipation in it. "After Omegamon was too much for his Ultimate level, he returned to the Digital World to attain his final evolution and then destroy those rats who keep being rescued from their executions. But you pursued him, as I planned, and I couldn't have you harmed when you only had pathetic Digimon like that to defend you." Had Millenniummon done more than watch while Ryo killed Diablomon? "At least Diablomon neutralized the Child of Destiny: Wallace was pursuing research into artificial Digimon creation himself, and his questions were unnaturally insightful. One Chosen Child whose power guided them down the proper path in their research was already one too many to be allowed to continue until they learned enough to pose a threat. Since Diablomon didn't completely fail in his mission I haven't scrapped his core and started over. He will simply have to wait until he's regained his power to exterminate the Chosen Children, and for his reward I have promised him a cloned human tuned to be his partner." Otherwise, an artificial Digimon would have no partner. "Their union will be all the sweeter for the anticipation…" MoonMillenniummon noticed Ryo's fear. "Why would I create myself another partner when I have you?"

That wasn't it. "My parents live in Tokyo," Ryo said, voice quiet in the great hall. "If Agumon and Gabumon hadn't won, I was over at Ken's house. I couldn't have gotten home and forced them into the Digital World in time." Without his own Digivice he couldn't even have gotten into the Digital World himself if Gennai hadn't sent V-mon.

"Parents. From my research into human emotions and their relative strengths, this is one of the stronger human bonds?"

Ryo gave a small nod, still curled up, unable to look into his partner's darkness. "It would hurt if I lost them. Taichi, Yamato and Omegamon saved their lives." So they had protected Ryo from harm.

"I already gave you permission to keep the Eight who fought Apocalymon, since their partners fought at your command: it's the other potential Chosen Children I will have Armageddemon eliminate for me." MoonMillenniummon chuckled. "Oh?"

"Promise you'll still let him have a partner even if he doesn't end up killing any of them?" Ryo asked, aching at the memory of _knowing_ that there was something so wonderful, a bond like that, and why wasn't there one for him, why?

"I suppose, dear Ryo, if he survives," his partner said indulgently, for he wouldn't let Ryo worry. "He would be eternally loyal to me, for such a gift – or you. I will inform him that he may thank your benevolence for the existence of his partner, when I craft him one. Even if one of my creations still wouldn't be _your_ equal, it will be _his_ partner." As precious to Diablomon as Ryo was to his creator. "Hmm, I believe I shall create it once I have finished my plans for the conquest of the human world. This way you will have loyal guards, if members of your kind attempt to target you."

For revenge? Trying to weaken Millenniummon? Thinking Ryo was a traitor to his species? For the sake of the distraction from the ache he asked, "What do you mean by level of power? You were making another god to be my partner?"

"Now I know that you are my partner, so only a god would be worthy of you, but I mean level. Once upon a time, Adult digivolution was considered the highest level an ordinary Digimon could attain, so it was called a Digimon's adult form. There were _stories_ of Digimon who evolved beyond Adult, but they were legends from the days of the ENIAC and the war against the Evil God. The Evil God's servants were more powerful than any Adult, so the ENIAC summoned a human with the power to digivolve Digimon beyond Adult to serve as his priest. The artificial humans of the Order of Qinglongmon were modeled after stories of that priest. The Child of Courage's spiked brown hair was considered a good omen."

"Gennai had brown hair?" Ryo wondered what color hair he'd _thought_ Gennai had. "I thought he was made with grey hair." He was a different kind of human, and didn't strange people have white and grey hair pretty often? That was just in stories, though.

"Yes, before the accumulated data drain caught up with him. Interesting that what humans call 'age' is their body's data-damaged form, the way a Digimon will revert to in-training…"

Data drain? Ryo noted it – if something was wrong with Gennai and his partner knew what it was, then maybe he would be willing to teach Ryo how it worked and how to fix it – but _level_ of power?

MoonMillenniummon also realized that Ryo's question about his friend had brought them off-topic. "When they found a digivolution beyond Adult, they called it 'Perfect.' Then someone digivolved past Perfect to Ultimate, and countless more Digimon killed themselves trying to attain those digivolutions and became part of Apocalymon. Many Digimon will never digivolve past child, like that Wormmon, or even in-training. The existence of Perfects and Ultimates drove home how truly pathetic and helpless they were."

Said someone who could reach Ultimate in way less than three months and wouldn't know what it was like to just be _unable_ to get any stronger no matter what you did, Ryo thought to himself.

"There is an even greater range of power within the Ultimate level than there is among Perfect Digimon: Omegamon's raw power was equal to a hundred ordinary Ultimates, but he was still an Ultimate. A level _beyond_ Ultimate… can a Digimon that powerful remain stable? That is why I ordered Diablomon to return to the Digital World instead of achieving that Digivolution in the internet, where his data might have been trapped instead of returning to Primary Village. Splitting the Digital World in two would have confined any explosion of unstable data and energy to only half of its inhabitants." Millenniummon and his army would have survived fine, since they had to be killed in both dimensions, and everyone else would come back to life unless it was the half with Gennai and Ken in it.

Wait a second. Ryo frowned. "You made me a Digimon that could have exploded and killed me if I was powerful enough to get it to that level?"

"Strange, is it not?" his partner mused without a trace of regret, because really, as though he would allow his partner to come to harm. "To feel compelled to give such a powerful partner to a Chosen Child who was my enemy? I wanted to lure you to my side with the promise of a worthy partner… but then you proved you were _my_ Destined One."

It made him feel invincible, really it did. Strong, worthy, wanted, _loved_. Not that he didn't have great friends and family, but partners were… to know that there was someone out there who _lived_ for him, who always would. That certainty that he was loved was a rock to stand on. It felt like he could move the world, the problem was that Millenniummon was a very _big_ rock and how was he going to keep it from smashing _into_ the world? But he, he was safe here. Because the partner he had been promised would always, _always_ keep him safe from harm… Oh? "I feel better now," he realized, uncurling and rolling over to look up.

"I would hope so," his partner said smugly. "An ordinary Digimon doesn't have the data to make a significant difference in their partner's condition, when humans are supercomputers." MoonMillenniummon was no ordinary Digimon.

"So you really did heal me?" The thought felt rare and strange, from what he know of Millenniummon, but Millenniummon would undo damage to himself, right? So was it so strange that he would bother to do the same for his partner? Of course he would, Ryo knew.

"Your physical structure is complex and error-prone. I will require further experimentation before I risk altering you, otherwise I would have checked for and healed your minor injuries before you awoke. _This_ injury was to the digivolution link between us, and your stores of emotional energy, and I believe my grasp of digivolution theory is sound." Given the radiating smugness, that was 'I know damn well it is.' "Although it would be imprecise to say I healed you: certain energies are compatible with healing, as certain emotions are compatible with destruction. Destructive energies can make a Digimon stronger instead of tearing them apart, and positive emotions like love can fuel attacks, but certain emotions lend themselves to certain things. I gave you the proper type of data, and you healed yourself."

What he'd felt from Millenniummon after the injury, and when Millenniummon told him stories of the past…

"Nurturing does not come naturally to me," his partner said thoughtfully. "And yet when it is _you_ , my dear Ryo? Now," he said, indulgence gone now that there was no more need to scrape the bottom of his core for any scrap of gentleness he could find. "I have enjoyed teaching you how to make your tools, but it is beyond time for you to learn digivolution energy theory. I will hear no arguments. I shouldn't have allowed you to waste your thoughts on the other Chosen Children when I should first have taught you the nature of your power and how to ensure you didn't injure yourself. I intend to digivolve into a form powerful enough to tear apart reality unshielded, so it will be simple for me to make reality fragile enough to be molded to my liking. I cannot exist at that level until I am certain that _you_ will not be torn apart." That he could withstand his partner's energies, even so closely bound to them.

Ryo relaxed, pillowing his head on arms crossed behind his head as he smiled upwards.

"Oh?" his partner wondered. It was one thing to appreciate harsh training after the fact, it was another to look forward to it.

"You're protecting me, like partners are supposed to."

"Are you surprised? I _am_ your partner."

Ryo shook his head, still smiling. "Not surprised," even if it was the Evil God. "It's just nice, isn't it? What I've wanted since I understood what having a partner meant. I'm glad. Even when we were enemies, you still wanted me to have a powerful protector."

 _Even when I first came to the Digital World, when I didn't ask to get dragged into this,_ he thought, _even when I didn't have a partner who was in danger from you, I knew I had to stop you_.

"No matter how much danger it put you in, no matter how many enemies stood between us, you still came to my side," the Evil God reminisced, voice echoing from the darkness above him. "Even then, I knew I had to have you." He chuckled. "But reminding me of my affection for you won't get you out of your lessons. The opposite in fact, my dear Ryo, when your life rests on this."

"Yeah," Ryo said, because that was exactly it, wasn't it? He loved his partner, so he didn't have a choice. He had to do whatever was necessary.

But if his partner loved him even when they were enemies, then he could have faith that his partner would definitely forgive him, for what he was going to try to do.

* * *

 _Armageddemon (Diablomon evolves to this fighting the 02 kids) is one of a handful of Digimon in the entire franchise specifically confirmed to have reached the level beyond Ultimate, which is called Super-Ultimate. Given how powerful Ultimates can get, taking him down is impressive._

 _The Wonderswan games and their timey wimey balls – the first of course being Mugendramon merging with a Chimairamon from the future, meaning history had to turn out such that the Chimairamon would be created, and since he was the only person who knew how, this meant he couldn't be defeated without causing a paradox…_

 _Except the Dark Seed contained enough of his knowledge that a history could happen where someone_ else _made that Chimairamon._

 _Anyway, the fact that something vaguely like the fourth game's middle of the last century-era events happened implies possibilities, but laying them out in detail… I don't know if I'll be doing that omake chapter._


	5. Perennials

Standing in the lawn in front of Gennai's where he and Agumon had waited for Yamato, Taichi summed it up. "First we almost get nuked, then Agumon and I get frozen and now Millenniummon's got Ryo, used him to digivolve into a new form and is going for a second new form?" If more people than Yamato had come through, Taichi would have had to end that on a positive note, since he knew that he'd come a little close to complaining, but just _come on already_.

"Wow, that's one hell of a day, even for us," Yamato agreed, giving Taichi a sympathetic smile. "Glad I missed the frozen part."

Taichi winced. "Glad I wasn't all-the-way awake in there." He dimly remembered hearing Ryo and V-mon yelling for Piccolomon to wake up, but he hadn't been aware of the passage of time, if time was even allowed to pass for him. Koushiro's explanation of how some of Millenniummon's tricks worked the last time made his head hurt, so maybe it was a good thing they hadn't risked bringing Koushiro through from the real world.

It had only been a few hours in the real world, so it was still the same day for Yamato, even though months had passed in the Digital world while Taichi was frozen. "I guess it still counts as the same day for me too because I haven't gone to bed yet?" he wondered, adjusting his goggles.

It was a relief to be able to move again. "Think we still have enough charge from all those people's e-mails to digivolve to Omegamon when we fight Millenniummon, guys?" Taichi asked the other three. Because it took Takeru and the crests to beat those two, and they didn't have the crests anymore and neither of them wanted to bring Takeru into this.

"We'll do it, Yamato," Gabumon said.

"Um-hmm!" Agumon agreed, nodding. "Ryo helped me save you, Taichi. I won't let him down."

Taichi nodded at his partner. "Yeah, it'll be good to pay him back for that. Speaking of which." Taichi gave Gennai a meaningful look. He instantly regretted it and smiled sheepishly, because Gennai already looked depressed and Taichi didn't want to make the old guy feel worse.

"What was Ken doing here while Millenniummon's running around?" Yamato asked Gennai, taking the words right out of Taichi's mouth. "It was bad enough letting Ryo fight Millenniummon alone when _he_ was new, but Ken's Takeru's age, Gennai, and Takeru was in danger with all of us looking after him instead of just one other kid." Yamato sounded a little angry, but he was better at that sensitivity thing than Taichi was, so it was easy to tell that he was more angry that this had happened than blaming Gennai.

Gennai let out a tired sigh and shrugged helplessly, ashamed. "I sent V-mon to bring Ryo, but Ken was summoned by the Digital World. Honesly, I'm surprised Wallace wasn't summoned along with him. I invited Taichi and Agumon to the Digital World after you defeated Diablomon because you insisted that I let you help once Millenniummon returned despite the divination results, and…" He sighed again, softer this time, shaking his head. "If the Four Holy Beasts fight Millenniummon, he will seal them away again, and they are needed to strengthen the Digital World after the Dark Masters and Apocalymon tore it apart. I didn't want to summon you here just to send you to your deaths. The two of you are incredibly powerful, but you are also just as fragile as I am: if you die, you won't be reborn."

"Well, that's up for debate," Yamato said, "but there's no Primary Village for humans, no. I guess now we know why the Digital World wanted Ryo, but what's special enough about Ken to make it worth dragging in younger kids?"

"The same reason as Hikari and Takeru, I'm afraid. Sheer power. Millenniummon used the power that came with his godhood to make himself impossible to defeat. Ryo and Wallace have the power to change that: as the Child of Miracles, Ryo wields the power that makes the impossible possible, and Wallace is the Child of Destiny, with the power to make the possible inevitable, which is how he received his partner's digi-egg on the same day the two of you first saw a Digimon – it was his destiny to meet his partners, and he brought that destiny into fruition. The two of them together could have given Millenniummon a fate of defeat, and Ken's Crest of Kindness can grant Digimon the sheer power necessary to make the defeat of a god a reality. Among Digimon, the most powerful are the best able to defend themselves, but even if I haven't encountered a great many humans, it seems that the most powerful are also the most vulnerable."

Gennai closed his eyes in morning. "Your brother, a gentle soul scarred by the fall of Angemon. Your sister, whose partner suffered alone because of my inadequacy. Ryo, bound to a partner who would _pervert_ the sacred bond between human and Digimon like that. Ken would have had his gentle core consumed by Millenniummon's evil if there wasn't still good left in Ryo." Taichi saw old, gnarled fingers clutch tightly at Gennai's cane. Even if he didn't need it to stand upright, it was probably still for support. He looked even older and more tired than usual.

Heart. For humans, the word was heart, but Taichi and Yamato didn't correct him. Gennai was made to be _like_ a human, but he'd still lived in the Digital World all his life. He tried, but he didn't get humans or the human world.

"Wallace… that's Koushiro's friend in America," Taichi realized, wanting to change the subject. He knew that Gennai and Ryo were friends, probably closer than Gennai and Koushiro since Koushiro hadn't lived with Gennai and was only an occasional student. "So the first nuke really was trying to take him out. So he's the one Diablomon was looking for!"

"Diablomon was clearly able to make contact with Millenniummon from within the internet, eventually." After dialing millions of numbers. "The question is how Millenniummon became aware of the Child of Destiny, and what else about you in your world he may have discovered." Well, he definitely knew what city the other Chosen Children lived in, when the second nuke was aimed right at the Digidestined in Tokyo – well, most of them. It was a relief to find out that Yamato and Takeru were out of town and Mimi was all the way in Hawaii, even if it made it difficult for Taichi to pull anyone together to fight Diablomon. "I sent V-mon into the network to bring Ryo, but Ken followed on his own."

Taichi nodded: that was why Gennai had sent Agumon to call for him, even if the old man was pretty sure after Diablomon that if Millenniummon saw any of the Original Digidestined a third time he'd just kill them. Ryo had gone with V-mon to fight Diablomon even before Taichi got here, hoping to finish him off before Taichi had to come and end up in danger if this was Millenniummon again. Taichi would have helped Ryo against Millenniummon last time, but Piemon and the others Millenniummon brought back to life were under orders to keep the Chosen Children and their partners too starved and exhausted to digivolve, so Taichi wasn't in a position to protest being sent straight back home to a hospital that knew how to treat humans – especially when Hikari had already been sent back to the human world, and Taichi needed to get to that hospital to see if she was okay. All they could do to help last time was ask their partners to protect the new kid, but _this_ time was going to be different.

"I know that if it is possible to fight Millenniummon's control to help us, then Ryo will, as he did for Ken, and Ryo's power is to make such things possible, to create a chink in impenetrable armor. If Millenniummon can keep him from breaking free, then delivering the Children of Kindness and Destiny into his claws… I should have faith in the power of the Chosen Children to bring forth a miracle," when he was a priest, a long time ago. But it had been a long time since then, and evil Digimon just kept coming. Poor old guy.

"You can't keep us from trying," Yamato told Gennai fiercely, not because he thought Gennai would try to stop them or anything but so Gennai knew this was _their_ decision and not anything he should feel guilty about. Taichi nodded vehemently, backing Yamato up. "Millenniummon's attacked our world too, and this is the world where our partners live. If he's sent a Digimon-virus into the internet once, he can do it again. According to the news, Diablomon caused a lot of trouble even before he broke out the nukes."

"He brought Vamdemon back to life and gave him Hikari and Tailmon," Tai said, clenching his fists.

"Nobody's wondering why you can travel between the worlds again and Taichi and Agumon aren't frozen anymore?" There weren't any footsteps or anything to warn them that someone was approaching. The voice came from behind them, and Taichi and Yamato turned, shifting a little closer to Gennai. Gabumon got between Yamato and the new arrival, but Agumon's eyes widened sadly, and one of his clawed hands tensed for a moment, wanting to reach out.

Brown hair, a rumpled purple shirt, thick safari pants and running shoes well-suited to the digital world, a yellow messenger bag with a water bottle and a few mysterious items peeking out of it. More practical clothing for the Digital World than what he'd worn to go online to the Odaiba Incident chatrooms, but basically the same Ryo as last time, just a few months older, another war harsher… and one eye turned red.

Taichi remembered Millenniummon's two heads and wondered if that was the reason he hadn't just made both of Ryo's eyes red. After looking at Yamato, his guess was, "He wants to get all the Chosen Children to come here so he can finish us off in one shot before he invades our world?" And _that_ was why Taichi told Gennai to contact Yamato and nobody else. Yamato would kill Taichi if Taichi went after Millenniummon alone and wasted their chance to summon Omegamon, but he'd also have killed Taichi if he didn't test the waters before letting Takeru dive through the portal and find out what the shark had in store for them.

"…You froze time and walked right up to us," Yamato said, and let out a very annoyed sigh. "That's how you showed up behind us out of nowhere. Same cheap trick he used to capture all of us last time."

"And you still can't do anything about it, just like last time," Ryo agreed.

He wasn't gloating, Taichi realized. That was a relief. If he was really evil, he'd be gloating. If anything he seemed more annoyed, or maybe tense, but not at them or because of them. It was kind of hard to tell with Ryo: he was usually as polite and reserved as Jou wished he could be all the time.

"It's dangerous to be here," Ryo went on, and yeah, that was definitely a warning. "Why do you think he left you alive instead of just killing you? You were test subjects for _this_ , and he has core profiles for all your partners." His eyes went to Agumon before he looked up again. "He wants an honor guard for me, and you two are a _matched set_."

"No way." Taichi met Ryo's eyes. "You came to the Digital World to help Agumon when Millenniummon had us. You know there's no way we're just going to leave you here."

"Aaand what happens if we _did_ just run away?" Yamato rolled his eyes.

Ryo grimaced and looked down at his feet. "He'll complete his conquest unopposed and spend years building up his forces in the Digital World while only a handful of days pass in the human world," Ryo admitted.

That was nowhere near enough time to figure out how to do anything about Digimon led by someone who knew enough about the human world's military capabilities and military _history_ to order a Japanese city nuked. Taichi didn't need to be a brainiac like Koushiro to know _that_ much, after all the meetings they'd had to figure out what to do if there was a next time.

"I like you guys, and I don't want to see humans or Digimon treated the way he treats them, but he's my partner and I'd do anything for him."

And that right there was proof that Ryo was still _Ryo_. An enemy wouldn't be warning them like this, an enemy would want to trick them into thinking he was on their side. Or just freeze time and backstab them. Ryo was sorry he couldn't help them anymore, sorry they couldn't trust him: he still wanted to be able to help them. And knowing Tailmon was actually making Taichi a little suspicious…

"We get it," Yamato said, trying to be gentle, like he would if this was Takeru. Actually it was probably easier for Yamato when it wasn't Takeru: less pressure. Taichi knew that worrying about Hikari made it tough to be calm, forget reassuring.

It didn't seem to help. "I'm sorry I can't be on your side anymore, Gennai, but Machinedramon had Piemon stick something into you so he could get information on artificial humans, how to make and control them. It's that constant data drain that's weakening you and corrupting your data enough you've gotten old. I can get it out. Enough digivices could burn it out of you, too." Digivices like Yamato's and Taichi's, if he couldn't risk trusting Ryo.

"You've changed since you cured Ken, Ryo," Gennai said sadly. "Is it progressing this quickly?"

Ryo looked up to stare at him for a second, before laughing. "Quickly?" Of course not. "Millenniummon kept me asleep for two months so the Dark Seed could come into bloom and become the Dark Flower before he let me wake up. He wasn't going to take any chances with his partner." Of course not. "I asked him to let me get the Dark Seed out of Ken the day I woke up, but after that? He's the God of Time. For me, it's been months since the last time I saw you. Since there's nothing that could give the two of us a challenge if I fought alongside my partner, Millenniummon decided that the next best thing would be to watch me defeat the Chosen Children. _Without_ any inferior Digimon to weigh me down." Ryo rolled his eyes: Taichi didn't even need to look over to his left to know that Yamato was rolling _his_ eyes too.

Then Ryo looked bleak, the moment of humor lost. "He's allowing himself that one treat before he gets down to business. He needs to _break_ the human world too hard for anyone to try to take out the Digital World with EMPs. It wouldn't work: the Digital World isn't the Network, but the Network is connected to both worlds, so the destruction of the Network would cause a lot of destruction in both the Human and Digital Worlds. He doesn't want anyone wiping out cities but him. So he has to move fast, and that's why he unfroze Taichi while the two of you could still summon Omegamon instead of waiting as long as it would take for a day to pass in the human world."

"We should get over to that base of his and attack," Taichi decided, glancing at Yamato for confirmation: Yamato and Gabumon both nodded. "Delaying doesn't benefit anyone but Millenniummon." Even if Diablomon was pretty dramatic, eventually enough of the people from all over the world who had lent them the thoughts and will to become Omegamon would stop having strong emotions about the fight for Agumon and Gabumon to lose the power to Digivolve that far without the crests. The power might come from the Chosen Children, not from the crests, but the power didn't channel itself.

If Jou was here he might have said something about discussing plans in front of an enemy, however unwilling. Not to mention that if Millenniummon was Ryo's partner, then of _course_ he'd be watching.

"Millenniummon left the coordinates for his base in Gennai's digiport when he used the Dark Seed to walk me out of here," Ryo told them, and after looking at Gennai and Agumon and biting his lip, clearly wanting to say something but feeling like he didn't have the right, he vanished.

Taichi nodded. That was as good a confirmation that he had the right idea as Ryo could probably give them. "If we're only fighting Ryo, then we don't have to deal with the Dark Seeds. He still wouldn't do something like that, and remember Mugendramon? If he's planning to take over the human world, he can get his hands on all the humans he wants, he won't need us for anything worth the risk of keeping us alive. And it's Millenniummon that's the Time Lord," Taichi said.

"Evil God of Time," Gennai corrected him.

Not from their world, wouldn't get the reference. Taichi only did because Koushiro liked shows about aliens.

"So, get our hands on Ryo and hope we have enough digivices to free him…" Yamato and Taichi looked at each other.

"He saved her and _Tailmon_ from Vamdemon," Taichi said. "Hikari will be so mad if I don't call her in for that part."

Yamato nodded: he and Jou also got handed over to Vamdemon along with Hikari for what shouldn't have been safe-keeping. Millenniummon's mind control being good enough to keep Vamdemon from sinking his fangs into Hikari and Tailmon… Now _that_ was scary. "Would you mind calling Koushiro for us?" he asked Gennai.

* * *

 _OOC Is Serious Business. Ryo being able to make Mille ignore the Evil Overlord List and not even want to go crush rebels is why his underlings attempt to stage an intervention in the fourth game._

 _In this fic? I made the comparison to sticking his finger in an electrical socket for a reason._

 _Digimon can handle large amounts of human emotional energy and it's beneficial, but it's either 'low-level background' or digivolution spike. Mille's got levels a Digimon would normally only experience during digivolution hitting his core constantly. Crests and digivices may focus power, but there's still a lot of energy loss in transmission and they're only drawing on a single emotion at a time, even though multiple emotions/possibly any emotion can power digivolution. Even if some of it's powering the link, Mille's getting a majority of the emotional energy Ryo produces (Ryo thinks he's only getting one type at a time, but that's because it's hard to sort out finer details in the mass)._

 _A lot of recreational drugs work by imitating what he managed to do to himself. Neurotransmitters are serious business because_ we do our thinking with them _. Millenniummon/Mugendramon is used to emotions_ not _biasing his thinking (or, at least, only biasing his thoughts a certain way), so he hasn't learned the skillset of noticing what he's feeling and checking to see how it's affecting his thoughts. So things that seem like a good idea are getting a pass without, 'hold on,_ why _does that seem like a good idea.' Often, the reason is 'because it's what Ryo wants.'_

 _Non-consensual soulbonds can be creepy, heh. I enjoy exploring the nastier implications with Millenniummon as the victim because he very much deserves it. Being a Magnificent Bastard doesn't make someone any less of a bastard._


	6. Pruning

_Relative ages here is interesting to think about, given the time flow difference in the Digital World._

 _Ryo is officially Taichi's age, but in terms of time spent alive he's more like Koushiro's._

 _Mimi and Koushiro were the first Digidestined to meet Ryo. Just imagine their reactions. Here's this kid. He looks Tai's age, meaning he's actually their age. He's new the way Hikari was new, dragged into an ongoing war instead of getting to start out easy on File Island. Hikari had the rest of them, and she also had a partner with ninja skills and lots of experience with the kind of stuff evil Digimon would try to do to take out their enemies. Ryo doesn't have a team, he doesn't even have a_ partner _. Just Agumon, who is looking after Ryo but worried about Taichi, and some other Digimon who are in this because they want to fight Millenniummon and Millenniummon has mind control tech, so having a Chosen Child around is a good thing in case_ they _get hit with the stuff._

 _The two of them couldn't stick around for reasons (I add starvation/injuries – none of those evil Digimon were going to be nice to prisoners, especially prisoners who helped kill them last), but yes, no wonder they asked their partners to help this kid_ not die _. At one point in Adventure, Mimi builds gravemounds for… not even all of the Digimon who have died trying to help the Chosen Children. At that point, no, they couldn't come back to life, because Primary Village had been destroyed. If Ryo dies, he won't come back period._

* * *

"So what if you're a god? We've beaten a god before."

The twin heads with glowing eyes inside the crystal looked upwards. " _I've_ beaten gods before, foolish Child. Don't speak of the ability of mortals to triumph over the gods through wit and will to _me_ , when in our first battle I was the mortal and you were the one who acted as the agent of a god and triumphed through _their_ power alone."

"An ordinary mortal." Yamato folded his arms. Really. "You're calling _Mugendramon_ an ordinary mortal?"

"Do you even know the cornerstone of strategy in the Digital World, where each level is normally ten times stronger than the one beneath? Effectiveness multipliers, and decreasing the enemy's effectiveness. Our martial arts were developed so the weak could defend themselves against the strong. We learn that ten multiplied by ten through cleverness surpasses a hundred halved by arrogance at Elecmon's knee, human. Remember when Piccolomon died to cover you as you ran, Child of _Friendship?_ A master like him could easily have defeated four ordinary Ultimates. You may speak to me of what can be achieved through strategy, wit and will when your partner is defeating Ultimates as Garurumon. For Omegamon has the raw power of a hundred ordinary Ultimates, just as an ordinary Ultimate has a hundred times Garurumon's power, and what does that mean? Nothing, In-Training of Friendship. Absolutely nothing. Not unless you can _make_ it mean anything. What do you think would have happened if you could digivolve to Omegamon when you faced me as Mugendramon?"

"We would have lost instead of won," Taichi said. "Omegamon's attacks wouldn't have bypassed your armor, and you weren't weak to them even if they did get through. And Agumon was too weak to stay as Wargreymon long enough to launch more than one attack: Omegamon would have just burned him out before he could even attack."

"The Chosen Children are chosen out of billions in the human world because they possess unusual abilities, but you are the Children of _Courage_. And _Friendship_." Poor, poor pathetic creatures. "The ability to reliably summon up raw power _is_ the power you possess. You were summoned to be the force that the others could multiply. Now, raw power must not be underestimated… it must be _thoroughly sabotaged_. I have more raw power than you do even with Omegamon, and there is nothing you can do about this. As for you? You don't even realize that you are already powerless and you have nothing that can allow you to change that fact."

Oh? This wasn't like when they fought Mugendramon, who attacked them relentlessly, or Millenniummon. He hadn't even spoken to them that time, just _frozen_ time: one minute they were digivolving, the next thing they knew they were all in cages without their digivices. "What was that about arrogance making people only half as powerful? I think that's a pretty good start." Both other times, he'd done all he could to keep them from fighting. Wanting to _let them_ now?

The Evil God chuckled. "You're not here as my opponent. You're here as Ryo's, when he measured himself against Agumon's stories of you. My partner would prefer that you survive with nothing broken but your will to fight, and he is _my_ partner. He knows that it is a Digimon's instinct to defend him if he is in danger, and punish any who dare harm him. He knows that if you manage to add another bruise to the ones he gained in your defense, I will rewind time to leave him unharmed and before a day has passed in the _digital_ world," not even the human world, " _I will break you so utterly that you will beg me to accept your offerings of the Children of Light and Hope."_

Ryo sighed, deliberately loud enough to get everyone's attention. "Stop giving them last minute tips and a motivational speech so you'll get a better show. Whose side are you on, anyway?"

Those two great heads bent down, and they heard a brief, soft laugh. A little smug, but it didn't sound like Ryo was going to be in trouble for disrespecting the Evil God. The crystal sank into the ground enough to be within reach of Ryo.

"I hope your next Digivolution is solid," Ryo said, a little sadly, when he reached out and his hand went through the side of the crystal.

…Ok, that was good to know. If his new body really wasn't physical, that ruled out Transcendent Sword. Supreme Cannon should still work, and Double Shot.

Taichi and Yamato looked at each other. "Ready, Gabumon?" Taichi heard as he asked his partner the same question.

"I thought you'd never ask!" Agumon said, frowning a little. When Ryo was first summoned into the Digital World after Taichi and the others were captured, Agumon was the only one Gennai had managed to rescue by teleporting him out of the bad guy's grip. Even though there were other volunteers helping out before long, especially once Ryo managed to use Taichi's digivice to free some of Millenniummon's slaves, Agumon had still looked after the new kid when he was stunned to be in the Digital World and wondering if this was real, the way Taichi and the others had back then. He still felt a little protective of him. Of course they'd had to help, but Millenniummon cheated and Taichi had gotten frozen along with Agumon.

First Ryo hinting for them not to let Millenniummon get to them, then telling them the big jerk was immune to something so they could use other attacks?

Ryo was still in there, and this exhibition fight was a chance to actually land a hit while Millenniummon might be distracted enough to actually let them, instead of just freezing time and taking Omegamon apart.

Gennai might say the divinations said that it was impossible to defeat Millenniummon, but people from all over the world had called forth a miracle today and killed _one_ cheating Ultimate. If they could make it two for two, and use that power to beat not just Diablomon but the Digimon who sent him?

Taichi felt the power pour from him, felt it gathered and channeled through his Digivice as Agumon became Greymon. Here was the moment where the crest (or something else) kicked in, and refined that raw emotion into something pure and strong enough to let Agumon reach his true Perfect form instead of the distorted Skullgreymon, and _here_ was the influx of power, more than Taichi or Yamato should have been able to summon on their own, that first came from Hikari and Takeru, channeled through Angewoman and Angemon's arrows.

It _hurt_ when those arrows hit, and at the same time it hadn't. Something overwhelming piercing them to the core, shot through the heart, but it had gone on through them into their partners and it was _right_. To be able to give that power to Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon.

Their crests were used up releasing the Four Holy Beasts, and Hikari and Takeru weren't here, but they still had the power from earlier in the day, and courage and friendship in their hearts. Hikari and Takeru still wanted to help them, and as Wargreymon's weight settled on the ground, shield at his back, Taichi turned to Yamato, feeling their arms clasp even though they stood meters apart. Together they _pulled_ and waited for the lightning strike, the overwhelming feeling of thousands of wills pouring through them, through the holes left by those arrows, the power that left them amazed they were still alive… and it never came.

"Yamato, what's wrong?" Metalgarurumon was the first to ask, as their partners turned to look at them.

"Then angels will shoot arrows of hope and light at the loved ones of those they've been sent to protect, and a miracle will happen." A deep voice chuckled. "Or… perhaps not."

Yamato fell to one knee, and Taichi's eyes widened. Yamato's partner _hadn't_ only been asking why they weren't Omegamon yet! "Yamato!"

"…Fine! I'm fine," Yamato said, clutching at his chest, breathing hard. "But I can't…"

Milenniummon laughed, equally pleased and mocking. "Poor Child of Friendship, dependent on the strength of others. There's no need to exhaust yourself calling for a power that no longer cares to answer you."

"The power that let you digivolve to Omegamon was a miracle. One that came from millions of humans instead of a single god, but still a miracle that made it possible for you to bring forth a power that should have been impossible for you to summon. And I'm the Destined Child of Miracles. I can make it possible for you to digivolve to Omegamon… but I don't have to let it be possible." At least Ryo wasn't gloating. He wasn't quite apologetic, but this voice was distant, absolutely not relishing this. Millenniummon didn't seem to notice, or perhaps he was already well aware that Ryo wasn't _completely_ under control and didn't want to draw attention to it?

"I used my control over time to establish a stable time loop that made it impossible to defeat me. The universe would act to prevent a paradox: my victory became written into the fundamental laws of the universe themselves. Only a power that could disregard the laws of physics and logic and what they made impossible could both make it possible to defeat me and make it possible for this history to _survive_ my defeat, instead of shattering in the instant of my death and bringing forth a new history where I was victorious." He chuckled. "For all my mastery of the secrets of the Digital World, I could still be defeated by a power that surpasses all reason. Only such a power could equal me, only that power could be worthy to stand at my side. I summoned him to this world by threatening yours, and he came. I was correct: the Chosen Child of Miracles is indeed my Destined One, and has taken his proper place at my side. The chink in my armor has become my shield. No longer will he summon the power of miracles to oppose me, and no longer will he allow others to use his power against me. Is that not so, my dear Ryo?"

"Of course," Ryo said, smiling up at the Evil God. "Ready?"

"Ready?" Taichi asked, shifting in front of Yamato as Wargreymon raised his shield in front of Metalgarurumon.

Ryo raised his Digivice, and Taichi braced himself when he saw the familiar glow of digivolution. The shockwave as MoonMillenniummon began to digivolve wasn't physical, but it still made Taichi grunt as power slammed into him. It was almost as strong as the impact of the power that brought forth Omegamon… _and that was just the shockwave_. Thank goodness Hikari wasn't here, because if even _Taichi_ was sensing something…

Even Hikari would have been worn out by channeling this much power, but even though the world was distorting around them, Ryo was the one thing that wasn't looking a little like a funhouse mirror. How was Ryo still standing… the same power that let Taichi channel Omegamon's power and head into the Digital World to pick a fight with the god an hour later.

Beside him, Taichi felt Yamato reach for Omegamon's power again, even thought Yamato was gasping for breath and Taichi had to reach out to him, now, because Yamato was almost out of the strength to stay connected to Taichi, even when Taichi was holding on to him as hard as he could.

Yamato was reaching out to _hundreds of thousands of people_ after it already didn't work, while they were getting hit with _this_ and Taichi could feel Wargreymon's shield flicker?

Well, that was Yamato.

"Nobody touches my partner." Ryo said firmly, meeting Taichi and Yamato's eyes. Then he grinned, blue eye shining as brightly as the red. "But me."

Yanking something from his hand, he threw it upwards, three golden bands of digicode that took the battering waves of distortion, of wrongness that emanated from the digivolving god and instead of shattering reflected them inwards.

And finally, finally lightning struck, the same power that poured through Hikari into Agumon and Taichi with him to kill Mugendramon in a single stroke.

No. Not the same. That was the power of the Digital World, and this was _everyone's_ power.

It happened so fast before that it seemed to strike him and Yamato at the same time. All they'd been able to tell about it was that it was something overwhelming enough their minds had processed it as _pain_ because that kind of raging power in their minds couldn't possibly be safe, but Yamato was the one who had to summon that power, call down the lightning to strike them… lightning… summoned by opposite charges… the union of opposites, the shape of Yamato's crest, but the thought was lost as the power crashed into Taichi.

Even if it came from people's wishes for their victory, for their survival, it was fear as well as hope, anger at the Digimon who aimed a nuclear missile at Tokyo as well as the will to protect the innocent. Taichi _had_ to take that chaos and burn it pure, because if the darkness in it crashed through him and Yamato into their partners?

He'd let Agumon dark digivolve once. Never again. He wouldn't let his partner go through that again! He wouldn't let Yamato have to watch his partner go berserk, knowing how he'd suffer afterwards, with the memories Agumon had of almost stepping on Taichi, of coming close to hurting his partner!

Taichi held his breath as he stared at the power that engulfed their partners, heard their voice as it finally declared, "Omegamon!"

Yamato was beside him now, the bond between them doubled by the bond between their partners. It wasn't telepathy that let them move as one: there wasn't any need to exchange words. To kill someone who called themselves a god called for "Omega Blast!"

 _This_ shockwave left them unmoved, but Ryo dropped down to the ground deliberately to keep himself from being knocked down, as the shot pierced between two of the circling bands into the chaotic mass of power.

A moment after it hit the enemy, Taichi's eyes widened as Omegamon's blast reappeared in front of Millenniummon. Not reflected back at them, but hitting the evil god again? What was going on?

Hadn't Agumon said something about Millenniummon rewinding time when they fought him, to undo their attacks and the damage they'd done? So why was the attack reappearing? Had something gone wrong with Millenniummon's power while he was digivolving? A god's own power was being turned against him, a power of time and space kept regenerating the power that could slay a hundred ordinary megas. They were repeating the moment of MoonMillenniummon's sabotaged digivolution again, and again, and again, the god torn apart by Omegamon's attack every time he rewound time to try to pull himself back together after the dual assault of his own power and that of the Chosen.

If Omegamon tried to use that many attacks he'd wear himself out. Was Millenniummon using up power not just healing the damage, but restoring the attack that caused it?

He might be a god, but… could even _he_ keep this up forever?

Watchful, Omegamon stood guard as the golden mass of digicode at the center of the explosions began to fray, fading in and out as Millenniummon lost the strength to hold on to his data, until a second passed and time _didn't_ rewind.

Another second and, "Omega Blast!"

This time, the power of that attack went out the other side, no time loop strong enough to interrupt it. The palace wall exploded behind Millennniummon as the Evil God exploded into data.

A few stray shards of crystal fell down towards Ryo's outstretched hands, and Yamato and Taichi remembered the feathers that had fallen when Angemon died.

Reaching out his arms to catch Tunomon, Yamato knew what that meant. "He's down, but still not out."

"This is what, the fourth time?" Taichi wondered. Four was the number of death, but Digimon never really died and Taichi didn't want to change that. Vamdemon and Millenniumon were _not_ worth the lives of all their victims, and if there was a way to make Digimon stay dead of course the bad guys would use it on Digimon like Leomon, Piccolomon and Andromon.

Taichi's Agumon. Koromon now, was too tired to bounce like Tunomon. Taichi had to kneel to pick him up. "You okay, buddy?"

"I'm fine," Koromon said. Taichi felt his partner's stomach rumbling just as much as he heard it. "Hungry, though."

"Sure, just as soon as we get back to File City."

They weren't worried about Apocalymon coming back. All his pieces had just wanted a chance to live, that was why they were so angry, and who could blame them? They'd been reborn at Primary Village, and they were getting the other chance that Digimon were supposed to get now. Yeah, being worshipped as saviors could get a little awkward sometimes, but it wasn't like those Digimon wanted _revenge_ for being saved from eternal suffering and despair.

A god that might come back as a baby Digimon that wanted to inflict suffering upon them instead of just a chorus of high-pitched thank-yous… Well, true, how much worse could it _really_ be, Taichi acknowledged, tucking Agumon under one arm to take out his digivice again as he followed Yamato towards Ryo.

"You can't use your digivices on me, not yet," Ryo said when they got closer.

"…You're making a pretty good argument for why we _need_ to use them on you, right now," Yamato said.

Taichi nodded. Ryo wanting to stay under Millenniummon's mind control just begged the question of whether he'd _really_ managed to break through that control or this whole thing was some kind of trap.

"It connects us. Like a digivice, but more," Ryo said, meeting their eyes. "I need my feelings to reach him if I'm going to have any chance of changing him."

"You think you can change him?" Taichi wondered, looking at Yamato again. "I know he's your partner…"

"Yeah. He's my partner. So either I change him or I'll keep having to kill him over and over again," Ryo said sadly, looking down at the egg in his hands.

"Ryo…" Koromon said sadly.

"It's not your fault," Ryo told him. "I just… I can't let him keep hurting Digimon. Even if removing the Da-what he installed would let me… would make it easier for me to ask Digimon to attack him again," the way he'd left his partner open for Omegamon's blast, "I don't want to have to. That was why I needed you to do it. I'm sorry that you had to fight my partner again. I'm sorry he's hurt so many people."

Taichi frowned. "You've met Tailmon, right? She didn't turn Hikari in to Vamdemon." He was terrified when he saw one of Vamdemon's minions with his sister, especially _that_ one, but if Tailmon could turn against that old bat, maybe? "It's not like we have any better ideas. If we did, we would have done something about him ourselves." Instead of letting a new kid get stuck cleaning up their mess.

"I guess that's true," Yamato realized. "Alright, it's worth a shot. Have you got a plan, or was making him let us walk right up to him so we were in a position to _take_ a shot when he thought we couldn't all you got?"

"I need to use the portal in Vamdemon's castle," Ryo told them gratefully, hands clasped around his partner's egg. "It used to belong to Gennai's order, there's a portal that can go to different worlds."

Taichi nodded. "We know, we've used it." Oh, right, that was probably how Ryo found out about it in the first place, from one of the others telling him how they and their partners got to the human world. "Wait, you want to take him home with you?" Really?

"No," Ryo said, looking back up at them from the egg in his hands, eye still red. "There's another world you can get to with the Agumon card, the one where Apocalymon was sealed. He'll get out of it eventually, but what we need is time. I know it." It was probably the faith they heard in his voice that made the egg in his hands begin to glow. Yamato, Taichi and their partners tensed, remembering how Poyomon was awake as soon as the egg hatched, but even though the egg cracked, Ryo had to brush the shards away from the light blue Digimon inside, and hold the limp body to his ear. Seeing Ryo relax proved that the baby Digimon was breathing, at least. "Good, the seal's still working."

So he had thought this through. Of course, who knew how much time he'd had to plan this? Yamato and Taichi looked at each other. "As long as you're planning to come back… Think you can digivolve, Tunomon?"

"It's for a good cause," Tunomon agreed, and Yamato put him down to use his digivice on his partner instead of Ryo. Yamato and Taichi climbed on Garurumon's back once he'd digivolved to Adult.

"Thanks, guys," Ryo said, letting out a relieved breath as he watched where they put their hands – right, he'd remember how sharp most of Garurumon's fur was. Once they were seated, he carefully navigated Garurumon's spines one-handed to make it to the safe area where Yamato and Taichi were sitting.

"Can I see what he looks like?" Taichi asked, leaning over Ryo's shoulder.

It took him a moment to unclench his arms: he'd probably been holding his partner a little too protectively. Tight enough to protect him from breathing, for a start.

"Aww, look at those little horns and bat wings," Yamato said indulgently. "Patamon's got bat wings for ears."

"Cute but evil," Taichi agreed. "Really cute, and really evil."

"Does he have multiple rows of sharp teeth, though?" Yamato said as thought this was a trump card, and his brother's partner clearly won.

"That's Tokomon, so he doesn't have shark teeth and bat wings at the same time," Taichi pointed out.

"What did Patamon have against Picodevimon anyway?" Ryo asked, shuddering.

"He went after Takeru, and Patamon never got to kill him," Yamato explained. "We last saw him in the human world, so Patamon must have been worried that Picodevimon might still be in the human world, with Takeru, while Patamon was stuck in the Digital World." Unable to protect his partner if Picodevimon went after him. "At least Millenniummon bringing him back to life proved that he must have been killed by someone." _Good_. "But my point was that Patamon's Patamon, and he digivolves into an angel." So Ryo's partner didn't _have_ to turn out evil, no matter what his baby form looked like.

Ryo smiled down at his partner. "I think to be an Evil God he'd have to be a fallen angel. I'd rather have a dragon."

"I guess he could be a dragon instead of a devil," Taichi acknowledged. "Mugendramon was a dragon. What made the difference between Agumon digivolving into Skullgreymon and Metalgreymon was me getting my act together. Just meeting Hikari changed Tailmon, even after everything Vamdemon did to her."

"It's not possible for one person to change someone else: that's …part of why my mom and dad didn't work out," Yamato said. "But sometimes they'll change themselves, for you. Or because they met you. Garurumon's really helped me grow up a lot." He smiled down at his partner.

"After meeting Agumon, and now V-mon… I would have loved any partner, but what I hoped for more than anything was my very own dragon…" Ryo's eyes were warm, looking down at his partner, and most of them didn't look at their partners like that. They didn't _need_ to: your partner was your partner.

Taichi knew that Agumon would always be his partner, even when Taichi messed up and didn't deserve him. There was something sad about the fact that Ryo looked wistful, and grateful, to see his partner in his arms, like it was a rare joy. Something to treasure, instead of just… how partners were.

It wasn't really something they thought about. The Digital World was so strange, and they needed to survive and get home and figure out what was going on so they could get home, and by the time they got a chance to breathe their partners were just _there_. Like the air they were breathing, the solid ground under their feet.

Their partners had done their best to protect Ryo, but it just wasn't the same. For Ryo to have his partner by his side instead of staring at him across the battlefield? Yeah, Taichi thought, looking down at Koromon in his lap, remembering after Skullgreymon, his partner's misery at the thought that _he might have hurt Taichi_. A partner… a partner was someone to treasure.


	7. Wrap Round the Trellis

"This is impossible!" the baby Digimon squeaked, flapping tiny blue bat (dragon) wings against Ryo's wrists.

Ryo smiled down at the partner held in his hands, the only bit of color besides him in the endless white expanse. He could fill it up by wishing for it to be filled, but he didn't really wish for anything but this, not right now. "Hey, you're the one who explained to me why I don't have to care about that word. It's not possible for your power to be sealed, even by the seal that confined Apocalymon. Just like it's not possible for you to be defeated. If I made one thing possible," if he could defeat Millenniummon in battle, "I could make the other thing possible."

"But… how? You were mine! You adored me!" Right, little black eyes pleaded?

"Oh, I love you," Ryo reassured him, squeezing him tight for a moment before holding him a bit away from his chest again so they could look at each other. The sight of his partner in such a small and weak form made him feel gentle, that he had to be careful with something so precious. Strange to think of the evil god as fragile, but this wasn't about the power to crush his enemies. This was his core in danger of being crushed. "I love you a lot." He did, he truly did, even knowing all the people Millenniummon had hurt. "But my parents love me too," the parents Diablomon would have killed just to force Ryo to come to the Digital World, "and that means they punish me when I do something wrong so I can be a better person. I love you, but you're still a complete and utter bastard who tried to murder millions of people who can't just come back to life."

Ryo kissed the tiny Digimon on the head. "I love you more than anything, and that means I won't let you hurt anyone ever again. You're the one who called me your shield: as long as you're evil, people won't have a choice. They'll _have_ to kill you to protect themselves, their partners and their families… _I'll_ have to kill you, and I… you're the one who tried to make it so I just _can't_ anymore." If he had to, then… but the Dark Seed heightened his bond to his partner, heightened his need to find some other way. "The more you made sure that I wanted to protect you, the more you made sure I'd have to force you to stop being a bastard."

He rubbed his cheek against Petitmon's squishy side. "I wanted to hold you, all this time…" He still remembered what normal was, and he was too old to snuggle an unusual stuffed animal no matter how cute it was, but there was no one here to see. The others held their partners when they were in their little forms, and now he _finally_ could hold his partner. _After all this time_. "This world is made of people's thoughts and wishes, so we won't need food here. We can stay here as long as we need to stay here." There was no one here to get hurt.

Petitmon frowned, little fangs poking out over his lip. "I'm still a God! If this world is ruled by my thoughts, I can make a hundred years pass outside in a second here!" This was a world of wishes, and a Digimon's digivolution data slept in their core, waiting for the Digimon to have the power to take their next form.

"But that would give them time to catch up to your technology," Ryo reminded him, smiling at him gently, knowing there wasn't any real malice or will to crush him in those words. "Come on, you're not going to throw away your advantages. And coming home to find my family was long dead: I'd be sad." He smiled into Petitmon's side. "You know I know you won't hurt me, partner. Just like I won't hurt you anymore. Remember telling me to never make empty threats?" So why was he? Just lashing out, because… Ryo winced and looked down at his partner regretfully. "Thinking that I might have betrayed you must have hurt. I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you unhappy, but I have to protect you. You're my partner."

"…I suppose you haven't really ruined my plans when I'll just escape this place before any time can pass in the other worlds," Petitmon admitted, with a little huff of hot air.

"What's so urgent about escaping?" Ryo asked him. "You'll get out eventually, and you didn't get to investigate this place as much as you wanted because it was full of Apocalymon, remember? You told me all those theories you had, and I'm here. Why not stay awhile?" he asked. Come on, wouldn't his partner like that? "With me?"

 _Well_ … Petitmon thought, glancing at his Ryo's eyes. He _supposed_ he could do some interesting research with his partner while he was studying his partner's first attempt at a seal. He _did_ have to get around to finishing his conquest, however. Their willingness to delay crushing the opposition for personal reasons was one of the reasons dark Digimon never got anything constructive done unless they were afraid for their own skins like Vamdemon or being manipulated by someone with sense.

"Just the two of us, no stupid people to waste your time," Ryo promised, gazing at him with the red eye he'd marked him with and a slight smirk. It was self-indulgent to sacrifice Ryo's ability to pass unnoticed among other humans just to warn both humans and Digimon that he was Millenniummon's partner, but his partner had already learned just how to tempt him, hadn't he? Such an intelligent human, such a perfect match for him.

Such a heady cocktail of power and devotion, not merely held to his lips but already flowing through his core, through the bond he had upgraded. Feeling his partner's quick, practical mind, ability to face even the harshest reality and capacity for loyalty had warmed his core towards the human even before he brought Ryo to him to ensure that his destined one became utterly bound to him.

There were countless ways to break someone's will and enslave them, but he'd known that if tasting the first few sips of Ryo's emotions made him not simply need to acquire or neutralize the boy for practical reasons but _want_ him, then of _course_ deepening their bond and showing Ryo his own divine glory would prove he merited his partner's eternal devotion.

He'd taken Ryo for his own intact, carefully leaving this priceless treasure undamaged so it remained so exquisitely worthy of him, but that meant Ryo's will, the perfect match to his own, was still intact.

Such ruthlessness! Able to hurt the one he adored if that was the most effective way to advance his plans. Willing to sacrifice himself on the altar of expediency: Ryo must have known that the Dark Flower would ensure that his partner's pain made his soul scream, and instead of flinching from what must be done he'd opened their link to the fullest so Omegamon could land that blow.

To surprise and trick _MoonMillenniummon_ , even when he knew all of Ryo's emotions? Yes, it should have been impossible, but his partner was the Child of Miracles, his perfect, destined match, his worthy one, his _equal_. Any other who could truly challenge him he would have had to crush, of course, kill them over and over until nothing remained of the mind and competence that could be an obstacle to his goals, but Ryo's core – brain – was not simply close to his own. It was _his,_ he knew at the core of him.

Ryo was destined to be his, and even if his partner had the power to make it possible to avert the inevitable... If he had broken, conditioned or puppeted Ryo, as he would someone unworthy, then the spirit worthy of his own would have been enraged. Would have despised him and with good reason, because what sort of idiot would damage something so valuable? He would have proved himself unworthy, Ryo would have rejected their bond, and that was only right and proper, because no lesser Digimon should be allowed to keep a treasure like his Ryo.

Better Digimon as pathetic as Agumon and V-mon, who had at least understood that Ryo merited obedience from his lessers and also proper guarding, than someone who would _damage_ him, thinking themselves competent to attempt to _improve_ on such a pleasingly-crafted being.

It would be ridiculous to expect blind obedience from Ryo, when Ryo was a perfect match for Millenniummon himself, and blind obedience? Him? Piemon had learned how wrong he was to think he controlled Mugendramon when he was revived and made to bow, and Apocalymon would soon realize that he had been raised for the slaughter if he ever came back into existence to be slaughtered.

Likely not anytime soon, when this was the dimension where Apocalymon formed, the failures drawn here by their wish to digivolve. They only came to this dimension of wishes after they had given up hope that their wishes could be granted, and so they'd never tapped its power. What a criminal waste, but only to be expected of lesser Digimon. With Ryo here, he would wish them back to life – Petitmon might even do the same, to remove them from this space before they wasted his partner's time.

"Countless others have tried to defeat me, seal me, break my power. Begged for me to cease my attacks and spare their friends." He let out a little sigh, careful not to unleash even a baby Digimon's attack so close to his partner's eyes. "It's irritating, and the fact that they're fools enough to think it will work is reason to despise them. But… when it's you who defeats me, dear Ryo, all I feel is pride. When you ask something of me, I wish to indulge you."

What use was being the Evil God of time if he couldn't put off dealing with the human world before it could possibly become desperate enough to damage itself with EMPs in an attempt to cripple the digital world and his army until… tomorrow?

Ryo stroking the top of his head with a finger while he just sat here in Ryo's other cupped palm would have merited immediate death if it was anyone else. How dare they lay a finger on him – literally, in fact?

When it was Ryo, he felt the little ball that was his current body relax, bit by bit, a little more with every stroke. Many baby Digimon were gel-like, or covered in thick wool that provided padding like Yuramon, evolved that way to absorb shocks and increase the odds they could survive being around more powerful Digimon until they could Digivolve. Without an exo or endoskeleton, it was only muscle tension that kept Petitmon in the form of a ball instead of gravity making him more of a pancake with horns and wings sticking out. A group of Zurumon was called a pool of Zurumon – although few Digimon but Elecmon had bothered to pet Zurumon and make them happy enough see the reason for the name, and even Elecmon wore special gloves to protect him from their poison.

He could feel himself sink down into Ryo's hand, flattening out millimeter by millimeter.

The brains of baby Digimon were simple things: at that stage they needed to concern themselves as much as possible with the business of survival, with eating, sleeping, running away from danger and towards safety.

The instinct of this unevolved form was telling him that he was safe here, in Ryo's grasp, with no one else here to harm him, and maybe that was why he revealed a weakness. "I love you, Ryo." It was one thing for that emotion to echo in their cores: there, it was power. Outside, said for anyone to hear? What if an enemy dared attack Ryo to get to him?

"I know," Ryo said, and he felt a fond contentment that echoed and supported his own, that love returned. "You know that's part of why you let me feel _your_ heart." So Ryo would know this, so his own love would grow in response. He felt himself lifted up, a kiss pressed to his forehead. "I love you too," Ryo said in answer.

It felt like the click of a lock, some mechanism in his mind recognizing the proper key the way Ryo had yielded so warmly, opening for even the imprint of his core. Satisfied, he felt something within him let go, leaving him pooled in Ryo's hand.

"It's nice, isn't it?" Ryo asked him, smiling.

This was how Ryo had felt when he woke up with the Dark Flower in his system, although his human body still ached from his battles while Petitmon felt fine after coming back to life. Oh, he felt a baby's weakness, but that was just temporary.

"I'll keep you safe," Ryo promised him.

"I am safe." He was an invincible god, and the chink in his armor had become his shield. The one power that could thwart him turned to his service, ready to ensure no one else could use that power against him. Unless Ryo willed it, at least, but even if Omegamon's attack had hurt it was hard to think of that now, warm in Ryo's hands. He still trusted his partner, because Ryo had not and would never truly betray him. His partner still loved him, had proved that he would do whatever it took to protect him.

Willing to plot such a vicious betrayal, to use Millenniummon's love for Ryo against him? How _perfect_. A plan worthy of Millenniummon, just like the planner himself.

A kiss to the top of his head, and Petitmon smugly accepted such gestures of his partner's affection as his due. What was not acceptable was the tinge of sadness.

"You're smart," Ryo said, smiling to reassure his partner when he felt Petitmon's concern. "You'll figure it out. We've got all the time in the worlds."

Well, then. Forget the human world (for now, at least); He would find the reason Ryo was sad and kill it. Was that not the duty of a partner Digimon? Someone who couldn't even do that much would not be worthy to stand beside a Chosen Child like his beloved Ryo.

So long, so long cold and alone, surrounded only by those beneath contempt, and then to taste Ryo's soul, Ryo's _power,_ so perfect, so _right_ (with destiny so meddlesome, he couldn't be sure: had he been made for Ryo or had Ryo been crafted perfect enough to enthrall him so?), exactly what he hadn't known he wanted until he received the reports of servants failing to acquire his newest test subject for him. Then finally the Dark Seed was completed, and when it activated and sent him that first _taste_? Power flowing through him, emotions offered up to his core, and even if someone ordinary could not have defeated him, it was one thing to theorize and another to feel. Even with the Dark Seed acting upon him Ryo had still considered, analyzed, seen to the proper care of his tools.

Not merely someone to not be taken lightly, but such potential there. A proper foundation, a… something to preserve, to nurture, instead of something to sweep aside to plant something less pathetic in its place. Something worthy of standing by his side, when no one had ever been before, but oh, Ryo _was_.

Baby Digimon tired easily: his eyes slid shut, and Ryo tapped that finger against where a nose would be. He didn't have a nose in this Digivolution, but was already enough of a dragon to have a snake's ability to taste the air: automatically, Petitmon's tongue darted out to taste it and Ryo's finger with it the way he tasted Ryo's cajoling affection and concern.

So perfect even Ryo's disobedience and disrespect evoked fondness, because would not he do the same in Ryo's place, if it seemed merited? A partner without the will to act on his own judgment would not be a worthy one.

"Of course you wouldn't remove the seal if I ordered you to," he murmured softly. "But what if I asked it of you?"

"…I'd ask you to let it stay. For now. For me. You don't understand yet, Petitmon, and you _need_ to, or so many people are going to suffer."

What did that matter, he thought of asking …but then let out another little sigh. One of the people to suffer would be his partner, it seemed. His partner would suffer if he removed the seal, and yet Ryo hadn't said no. Petitmon had felt him waver, feeling that it _needed_ to stay but if his partner asked it of him? Then Ryo wanted to do it for him, wished he could grant even his partner's idlest wish the way he wished to indulge Ryo.

Even in this.

"Then it will remain," he decreed. He would have wriggled into Ryo's hand to test if it was possible to be even just a little closer to his partner, but movement against his belly was _really_ uncomfortable in this particular digivolution and he didn't want to trigger the reflex to blast his dear partner with hot air. "I will expect something better from you eventually," he murmured. "The digivice uses a fraction of your power to protect you from harm: that function will need to be improved and integrated into the Dark Flower." Ryo should have been utterly content in his grasp when he woke: for him to be in pain from an prior injury had distorted Millenniummon's data and made him worry for a moment whether his creation was flawed and his partner would be able to look upon him and still see his enemy instead of his partner. See a prison instead of where he belonged.

That was why he had let Ryo go and waste his time with that Wormmon's human. A _Wormmon's_ partner. A human only worthy of the most pathetic child in the Digital World, and they thought this Ken was a fit opponent for _Millenniummon_? It was an insult. What if his Ryo caught mediocrity from him?

Yet it was a relief to have Ryo ask not to leave, but to simply run an errand. To go and then return to his partner's side. It was proof Ryo understood his position, that he was a partner instead of a mere prisoner. He hadn't been afraid that Millenniummon might say he was not allowed to leave at all, simply hoped his partner wouldn't be jealous that he wished to visit someone else.

So he had waited, and Ryo had returned to him. Was that not the reason he had created Diablomon, conceived the plan to split the Digital World in two? All so Ryo would return to the Digital World, so his partner would come to his side.

"You will assist me with the upgrades, once I am certain you have learned enough not to damage yourself." A pity that Ryo wouldn't accept test subjects to try out his upgrades on…

"But I don't want to have to keep you sealed forever." Weakening his partner?

"Then something else. The Dark Flower strengthens our bond, but it would be even more difficult to break or damage if it was anchored on both sides, instead of drawing all of its power from you."

"You'd let me install something into your core? After I put a seal on you to try to change you?"

"To give you the opportunity," Petitmon corrected him. "What other methods did you have of convincing me to listen to you? You are barely out of your in-training evolution: you lack the skill to debate me." Ryo's dawning happiness, incredulous and grateful? More, yes, _more_. "For you to just give up on doing something important to you without fighting a way to fight for it… Such a thing would be unworthy of you, my beloved."

* * *

 _Since we know Millenniummon had internet access, presumably he did more research than just on the Chosen Children during the first game before trying to put his prototype into someone_ linked to his mind _. Sure, he can rewind time, but not if whatever side effect hurt Ryo fried his brain too._

… _Except as the fourth game shows, Millenniummon falls under Love Makes You Stupid (when it would benefit Ryo), which is discussed in-universe by underlings who volunteer to kill Ryo so their boss will recover his memories of the freaking Evil Overlord List. Said boss is indeed so fixated on plans to acquire his partner that he lets them go commit suicide by Ryo (after all, who doesn't like victims?) instead of taking the two seconds necessary to make_ examples _of them for not just thinking that he'd lost it but thinking he needed an intervention…_

 _Or the other way to interpret it is that if fighting his partner has caused Ryo to develop full PTSD to the point his mind has NOPEd out of most everything and Monodramon is basically assigned to keep him from wandering into traffic while too BSODd to register what's going on around him, then it makes sense that Millenniummon isn't doing any better, when he's the one who's been aware that Ryo is his partner for at least the past two games. Remember Tailmon being unable to kill Hikari, and then obsessively stalking her/watching her through binoculars?_

 _Millenniummon's mind and emotions are sabotaging him when it would end badly for Ryo if he succeeded. I doubt even Mille's subconscious would count on_ Ken _saving the day, and I noticed that the Power of Miracles does seem to be involved when people break out of the Dark Seed's control._

 _So the device Mille tried to create to control Ryo is weak against Ryo's particular power. Or perhaps it's just that it's impossible to fight off the Dark Seed's control and the power of Miracles bypasses that?_


	8. Harvest

_Love does not change who someone is – this is a good thing, otherwise they'd automatically stop being the person you could love the instant they loved you back._

 _This means that Ryo is still the person who would have gone to save the Digital World even after said world lied to him and set things up so innocent Digimon would be killed and Ryo would blame himself, and Mille is still the person who subconsciously set himself up to get murdered repeatedly when it was the only context in which he could see Ryo without hurting him (except no, because war doesn't work that way)._

 _If those deaths didn't make Ryo go 'screw you, I'm going home,' then yeah, he's probably not joining the actual Dark Side._

 _Mille is still evil, it's just that the fact he doesn't value other people and their lives means he doesn't value them enough to see them as worth pissing off Ryo. I'd say the fourth game establishes that he doesn't actually enjoy ruling worlds – all he wants to do once he's actually ruling the Tamers and Adventure worlds instead of just bombing the heck out of them is screw around with mad science. It's strange when a character's complete disregard for human life actually works in the world's favor for once._

* * *

Ryo stepped out of the portal into the middle of a picnic, and he had only a moment to notice that Ken had brought back snacks for V-mon before he was hit with the beam of a digivice.

That was actually a good thing, he thought, as more of the others focused their power on burning the contamination out of him. He didn't want to go home to his parents with a red eye, and the others would be more likely to believe what he said if he didn't have the Dark Flower inside him anymore. Koushiro and Gennai could verify he wasn't being controlled, and he could make sure Gennai was okay. Instead of trying to shield himself, Ryo's hand went to the strap of his bag, checking for his digivice. As long as he had that, he'd still be connected to his partner, he thought, and when he relaxed and let it happen (let it be possible for it to happen) he felt the dark data leave his body, finally broken by the power of the Chosen…

Huh. He blinked. "Is my eye still red?" He felt a little different, but he could still feel his partner about the same. Was the digivice improved _that_ much?

Someone took his face in their hands. Jou, Ryo saw when he blinked and refocused his eyes on the other Chosen's concerned face. "No, that's fine, both of your eyes are blue. Can you track my finger with your eyes? I'd ask you what day it is, but I have no idea how many days it's been for you..."

"They got here ten minutes after you went in. Koushiro's been working on digiports so next time there's an emergency we can go to each other's houses through the digital world," Yamato said as Ryo followed the doctor's orders.

He felt warmth on his shoulders. Sunlight. They were in the open air? Someone had taken the roof off Vamdemon's castle? Wasn't this where Gennai used to live? Then again, he shouldn't have to see it like that, the place where all his brothers were killed turned into a torture dungeon. Ryo should probably thank whoever stomped all over it, because…

…Because his partner was behind the Dark Masters, wasn't he? If he hadn't weakened Apocalymon's seal, hadn't been pulling the strings, Gennai's… people would be alive.

"What's wrong?" Jou asked.

"Is Ryo okay?" Ken came up to Ryo's side to see.

"I thought of something." Could their data be recovered? This was the Digital World: people weren't supposed to die here, not really, and with his partner's power maybe the data could be recovered?

"Stop crowding my partner," Petitmon said testily, patting Ryo's cheek with one of his small wings, perched on Ryo's shoulder. "Now I have to check him over, you've made my Dark Flower malfunction."

"It's still there?" Jou held up his digivice.

Petitmon ignored him. "Some of my monitoring system is gone: be _quiet_ so I can see what else you ruined."

"Don't kill them," Ryo said firmly. He honestly had felt okay, up until his partner started to get worried and now the fear for his most (only) precious person was hitting Ryo. He was pretty sure he was only sick with Petitmon's worry and not actually sick. He knew what it felt like to have fear for his home and family clawing at him, the stress he couldn't reveal or the Digimon would worry a heavy knot in his gut.

"If they have damaged your brain or nervous system by breaking parts of my creation instead of simply removing it so the upgraded version could be installed, I will listen to your opinion _after_ I have rewound time to undo the damage. Unseal me: I would rather not have to do it myself if you have a 'stroke.' Your bodies are overly complicated and far too prone to fatal errors." Ryo wondered if any of the others could hear his partner's worry and protectiveness.

"Don't scold me," Ryo told him, closing his eyes so he didn't get cross-eyed as Petitmon flew right up to his face to touch his forehead to Ryo's. "I didn't design them."

"If your world has any gods I have reserved the right to overthrow them and seal them where I put the Four Holy Beasts," should have been funny from a baby Digimon's squeaky voice.

The seal was unbreakable: all he had to do was make it possible to break it, and the raging power of ZiydMillenniummon tore it apart. The others cried out and braced themselves as they found themselves enveloped in his partner's insubstantial body and the room shook around them until Ryo's partner took a moment to activate the seal he'd created for himself, to avoid breaking his future conquest. Or Ryo's family's house.

The others picked themselves up after what was left of the room stopped shaking, Mimi hurriedly righting a toppled glass before it could spill any more red juice on the picnic blanket while the others stared around them. They must think they'd been enveloped in some dark fog as a prelude to attack, since they wouldn't know this was his partner's body now: Ryo opened his mouth to explain when ZiydMillenniummon spoke.

"…You 'purified' my Dark Flower. Just _wished_ the evil out of it?" the now-deep voice came from all around them. "That should not have worked, let alone yielded a functioning result, but I have not fully studied your abilities – yet – and my dear Ryo is here. I'm sure his power is the only reason it was possible for you to escape the fates you would have suffered for harming him."

Ryo held up his hand before someone could take exception to that threat and things could escalate, and the seal ring glowed, three gold bands of digicode expanding outwards through the haze of his partner's insubstantial body. He couldn't see them, but he knew they'd be joining and reinforcing the four green bands of the seal that kept his partner's power from overflowing.

About ten seconds later they could all see clearly again, and Petitmon fluttered down to reclaim his perch on Ryo's shoulder.

When the not-entirely-formerly-evil Digimon ignored them to press his cheek against his partner's, the other kids started to relax a little, although their hands were still on their digivices. Some of their Digimon weren't here? Ryo looked up to see Angemon, Garurumon, Birdramon and Kabuterimon perched on the four walls that surrounded the topless room, ready to jump down to get the kids out of there or catch whatever came out of the portal in, well, as much of a crossfire as Adults could manage.

Of course they'd protect their partners.

Oh! Speaking of which, he reached up to pluck Petitmon off his shoulder and cup him in his hands. Stepping towards Ken, he held him out for the kid to see, feeling his face break into a broad smile. "I told you I met my partner, so I guess this is… proper introductions?"

* * *

Later, when most of them had to go home and the group wasn't overwhelmingly large, Ryo finally had the chance to give Taichi and Yamato a formal bow of thanks. "Thank you so much, guys. If it didn't work I don't know if I could have stopped him anytime soon, he would have been watching for the next try."

The blue squishy ball on his shoulder rubbed his cheek against Ryo's. "Wouldn't it have been so much fun to test our wits against each other?"

"Not while you killed people," Ryo told him, reaching up to rub one of his horns between three fingers. "A prank war's a better idea, isn't it? We don't have to worry about hurting each other that way… once you learn the different between harmless prank and painful torture, anyway."

"I will master those techniques, and then we will battle each other endlessly," Petitmon said, sounding very satisfied with himself.

Takeru was frowning at Petitmon, caught in a conflict of signals. Like Patamon meant good. Like Picodevimon meant kick it into a wall and stomp it into the ground until it was only mostly dead and Patamon could chew on what was left.

"You don't have to bow. You're one of us. Just next time, don't keep us from Digivolving," Yamato said, wincing at the memory

Ryo pointed at his partner. "Sorry. He knew it was a miracle: he was waiting for you to try it so I could block it. He would have felt me choosing not to block it."

"We need to figure out something in case anyone else figures out another way to block digivolution." Taichi said. "Remember when we fought Etemon and the Dark Network he stole from Datamon?"

"That was mine: Apocalymon wanted me to invent more ways to block digivolution so more Digimon would fail to digivolve and give him more power, and I was pretending to be obedient until I could merge with him and take all his power for myself," Petitmon chimed in.

"How?" Koushiro asked, interested.

Ryo unbuttoned his bag and pulled out a laptop. Koushiro cleared space for it next to his own on the table, as an invitation. "Mind if I?" he asked before leaning to look over Ryo's shoulder.

"Sure," Ryo said as it booted up with a touch.

Koushiro's eyes lit up. "A custom operating system as well as hardware? Does it incorporate some of the same technology as the Digivice? I wish I could make a custom operating system, but as an Odaiba resident, it's not safe for me to be carrying around software based on the technology of another dimension. I've been interested in using the mental link between humans and Digimon for some other applications, the potential implied by partner bonds being _possible_ is _…"_ He paused, staring. _"_ MilliStrike Portals Y2K? Who named the operating system _that_?"

Ryo poked his partner's cheek. "He did. I'm changing it to MilliSquish."

"…You might want to pick something less obviously evil," Koushiro told him, shuddering.

"Take a look at this, though," Ryo said, clicking on something.

"Also obviously evil… wait, but that would only function if…" Koushiro's eyes widened as Ryo scrolled down. "Prodigious," he breathed. "If a latent link is already present even without a Digivice, then it _would_ be possible to activate them en masse. Wait, no, if that was done from the Digital World…"

"There are two other dimensions. You've been to one of them."

"The one that responded to our wills when we fought Apocalymon… Yes, that would work! Activating every single partner bond on the planet with a single event? Not _the_ Singularity even if they are digital beings, but _a_ Singularity: I can't even begin to imagine what form society would take afterwards, when partner bonds are on the level of family and romantic bonds, and those two impact every aspect of how humans live their lives. Unilaterally making that kind of decision for the entire planet… but partners would put the majority of the world's mental health professionals out of business, and the impact on…"

"Koushiro," Tentomon said, "You asked me to tell you when you were contemplating playing god again."

"Oh, right," Koushiro sighed.

"Playing?" Petitmon said, offended. Being huffy made him puff up to look bigger. This digivolution was a a cute little hot air balloon, and he had to wrap a wing around some of Ryo's hair so he didn't float upwards off Ryo's shoulder too far until he calmed down.

"Tentomon's not talking about actual gods." Ryo laughed, tapping his partner on the forehead to help him get back down.

"But the Child of Knowledge _is_ a god, in two out of the three major religions practiced in the digital world."

"Oh, right," Ryo remembered. "And no, you're not allowed to exterminate that last one for not acknowledging my divinity."

"It's dying out anyway, it was an Apocalymon-worshipping true-death-seeking cult. The Chosen Children finally descending to the Digital World to bring it salvation as promised has prompted a return to the old ways," Ryo's partner said approvingly.

"Wait, a psychic link with Tentomon is possible without your mind control equip- No, I already have one, it just has an amount of bandwidth that… well, it probably seemed reasonable in the Eighties…" Koushiro conceded absently. "Petitmon, this is the start of a beautiful…"

"I don't have 'friends,'" Petitmon said coldly, settling back down against Ryo's neck.

"What about Ryo?" Yamato wondered.

"Ryo is my beloved partner." Not a mere friend. "Our correspondence was informative, but I don't need to pretend to care about the members of some group to be informed of Ryo's activities anymore."

"Correspondence… a group… You're FullMetalLabcoat!" Koushiro realized. "Of course, I should have figured it out! If you sent Diablomon to the network, of course you must have had access to it, and of course you would have used that to gather information on your targets! I knew you were trying to gather intelligence and that you had an unusual amount of information on the disruption caused by the weakening of the dimensional barrier, but I thought you were military intelligence!"

"I was." Both military and intelligent.

Koushiro took a drink from his soda through a straw before saying, more than a little unimpressed. "Well, let me know if you ever manage to develop the capacity for friendship."

"We are going to find V-mon's partner, though," Ryo said firmly. "If peace breaks out in the Digital World, who knows when he'll be summoned? And I owe the little guy."

* * *

"ThisisDaisuke! He plays soccer and likes dinosaurs and lives near Taichi and Hikari so I can visit Tailmon and Agumon!" Chibimon said, bouncing up and down in the arms of a kid with spiky brown hair.

The kid grinned at them, huge enough to match his partner's smile. "So you're Chibimon's friends Ken and Wormmon?" he asked.

Ken nodded shyly. "I'm Wormmon," his partner said for him, puffing up what passed for a chest, "And this is my partner Ken." Who was still the best partner, even if it was nice to see his friend so happy. "How do you do?"

"Great! Chibimon's a dinosaur, and now I can talk with Hikari and Taichi about the stuff they wouldn't talk to me about!"

Yamato patted Osamu on the shoulder.

"We're thinking of starting a support group," Taichi told him. "So far it's the two of us, a couple of Jou's brothers and _not_ Daisuke's sister Jun."

"We told Jou he can can join the support group if any of his older brothers get digivices," Yamato said. "He'll need the help, he's a worrier."

"I may let Daisuke join if Jun gets a digivice. He's a good kid," Taichi assured Osamu. "He's been Hikari's friend since we moved here, and didn't mind when she did something a little strange." So no need to worry, even if Ken's powers weren't as likely to brand him the weird kid as Hikari's.

"I don't have the time," Osamu said, looking frazzled. "I'm going to get in so much trouble for missing cram school to make sure Ken got here safely…"

"Huh," Yamato said, and turned around. "Koushiro, is the website for that fake genius after-school group still up?"

"Yes, why?"

Osamu blinked. "Fake genius group?"

"I needed to have a reasonable explanation for… I took reasonable precautions when I started releasing some information on the digital world online to assist other Chosen Children and help people feel safer again after what happened in Odaiba, but I failed to take the time to become an expert in that kind of subterfuge beforehand and that necessitated some rapid improvisation and the assistance of Yamato's father. There are only so many residents of Odaiba in our age bracket, I was already known as a genius and the fact all the children were gathered in one location and the police interviewed them so they could confirm the presence of the majority of our peers in that location while we were fighting meant my real identity attracted more scrutiny than I expected after I began posting as ChildofWiz."

"My Dad's a reporter, he put some publicity together," Yamato explained. "The organization part is fake, Koushiro's really a genius."

"Ryo's in it too because he was also involved in the Odaiba Incident chatroom community before he was first brought to the digital world. Jou's brothers have been kind enough to list it on their curriculum vitae to create additional documentation."

"They padded their applications," Yamato translated. "I'm on the roster too, which'll be a lot more impressive once my music career takes off. Sora's the heiress of a prestigious flower arranging family, Jou was already studying to be a doctor in elementary school and Mimi's Mimi."

"I'm no help," Taichi said cheerfully. "But it's probably a bad idea for the eight of us to be on records anywhere all-together as a group, so that works."

Osamu looked at Ken, who had already brightened in response to Daisuke's infectious enthusiasm. He couldn't let Ken come all this way by himself – it would almost be worse if Wormmon or Minomon was with him, because what if someone identified Ken's partner as a Digimon? He couldn't get away with attending it every day after school, his mom would want to drop in unannounced to be sure they were taking proper care of her genius too often, but if he could have an excuse to get out of cram school and interviews maybe just one day a week… and Koushiro had done his best to help keep Ken safe, it was really the least Osamu owed him to help make his cover story a little tighter so he didn't get hauled off by men in black, right? …And it would be really, really nice to get a break sometimes. "Do you think you can convince my parents…" he wondered hopefully.

* * *

 _Taichi's being modest: he would be in there as a 'youth/community leader,' since it's implied that he is, but in the aftermath of the Odaiba Incident, when you know at least some people are thinking in 'hero team' terms, drawing further attention to that is risky._

 _A bio detail is that Koushiro was in the Soccer Club with Taichi and Sora. Osamu wants Koushiro's parents, especially since he can tell that Ken kind of wants Ryo for his big brother, but now that the digivice misunderstanding is cleared up Osamu's not so much threatened by Ryo as aware that the main issue is that he doesn't have_ time _to be a big brother to Ken. The Ichijoujis may have to deal with one of their kids running away from home in this timeline, too..._


	9. Epilogue

_& time for epilogues of varying degrees of crack._

* * *

"Wallace's partner has been infected with some kind of virus that's made him go berserk," Koushiro said. "We're hoping that if we use enough digivices, we can burn it out of him. The problem was getting everyone to Wallace's location, but now that Gennai and I have worked out the details of getting through the Digital World to a digi-port opened by Wallace, it's just a matter of finding a day when everyone's free for long enough that Chocomon will hopefully show up so we can make the attempt. Apparently he is more likely to appear when Wallace is around other people."

"Wallace… Ah yes, CocoaTerrier _."_ Petitmon said. "I did that in order to neutralize him, since his intelligence was significant, his partners could potentially achieve powerful forms and I wasn't sure of what his crest might be until Diablomon infected one of his partners and I could get a look at their data. I can summon that slave and order it into sleeper mode so you can target it at your leisure: that way Ryo won't have to wait around all day with the rest of you."

Ryo plucked the Digimon from his shoulder to hold Petitmon out in front of him where he could give him a _look._

Petitmon's response wasn't an innocent look: the expression only made those solid black eyes look innocent because of the complete absence of any guilt.

"You did something to someone's partner and didn't fix it?" Ryo asked him.

"It didn't occur to me." Why would he care about one Digimon he'd controlled among hundreds? "The virus is custom, or it would have shut down with the system."

"Do you have any other unique pieces of mind control tech out here… Of course you do." Ryo sighed. "Sorry, guys," he told Koushiro and Tentomon, lowering his partner to address the two of them. "I'll make him remember them and turn them off too." He lifted his partner back up to give him a disappointed look. "Petitmon, I thought you knew how this worked by now. How you feel if you were Wallace and someone did to _me_ whatever you did to Chocomon?"

"I would make an example of their associates and entire evolutionary line." Those black eyes narrowed.

"No, killing Wallace so he doesn't come after me is not the point. You need to _stop doing things_ that will make people want to kill me," Ryo explained with long-suffering patience.

Partner Digimon being what they were, his partner's safety was one argument that would get through to even the Evil God of Space-Time, Koushiro theorized.

"And you care about others' feelings, so you must be thinking about how _you_ would feel in Wallace's position, with your partner turned against you, even if I wouldn't program something that could do something like that to _me_." The squishy body let Petitmon twist to rub his cheek against Ryo's hand, before patting his fingers with his one free wing. "I already said that I would fix this, dear. There's no need to convince me: I know mind control bothers you, and I no longer have any need to use tactics that would upset you, my dear partner. Destroying a few outdated programs is no price at all to pay to demonstrate my regard for you."

"Outdated?" Koushiro asked. "Wallace's theory is that the virus was spread by Diablomon during the attack on the internet two weeks ago." That theory seemed to be confirmed. "Since I doubt you would use an outdated version even as a back-up plan for eliminating a Digidestined's partner from the playing field and hopefully neutralizing Wallace's power, does that mean you've invented an improved version since then?"

Ryo glared at his partner, face set and serious.

"I've retired that entire type of technology," Petitmon reassured him. "It's useless to me now. Why would I care for the thoughts of others when I have you?"

"Tentomon, have I told you that I'm really glad you're my partner?" Koushiro asked the bug on his computer desk.

* * *

Floating among golden peaks, Qinglongmon worried that, "Millenniummon's power may be sealed, but that seal is under the control of that human he controls. Now, he's interfering with my Order: the human swore to Gennai that Millenniummon only recovered their files from the past the way he recovered Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon and Piemon's files, but who knows what malware he installed into them, after he had Piemon install something into the surviving Gennai? They _claim_ that it was removed when that Gennai's files were repaired, but how can we trust either of them?"

Perched on one of them, Baihumon growled. "We can't allow this situation to…"

 _Slam_.

Zhuqaiomon had darted out of the way in time and Xuanwumon had hunkered down in the gap between two of the giant spikes, but Qinglongmon was clipped by the giant tail that slammed down on the Sovereign of the West. That tail lifted up again, but remained deliberately in view.

"What was that?" the great voice came rumbling from all around them.

"Nothing, Lord Huanglongmon," Xuanwumon's lower head said, the two of them glaring at Qinglongmon and Baihumon, who was still gasping for breath.

"That's what I _thought_ ," the world-dragon said sternly, and they felt his back flex as he tucked his tail back around his legs. "Because I may be ancient, but I am certain I remember telling you that the subject of Millenniummon and the Child of Miracles was _closed_." His grumble shook the ground under Baihumon's paws again.

"So your plan to control the situation is progressing, Lord Huanglongmon?" Qinglongmon ventured.

"My plan is already complete. The newest God of the Digital World has a keeper who _isn't me_. I already have the four of you to supervise, and my father to guard. I'm not babysitting _another_ one, especially not _that_ one. My scales would be silver within a century."

"Child of Miracles? He's not even a true Chosen Child!"

Huanglongmon shifted, but decided he didn't want to bother lifting his tail again when he'd just gotten comfortable. "The next time someone arrives to pay me tribute, I'm asking for a backscratcher." Like the one he'd had to whack them with until the Dark Masters set up an array that channeled Apocalymon's power and broke it along with his legs and most of his spikes long enough to finish setting up the seal. "Who died and made you the Will of the Digital World, Zhuqaiomon?"

"I'm sure that the Lord of the South did not mean to usurp your creator's role, Guardian of the ENIAC."

The First Among Dragons snorted. "Perhaps I should ask my father to run a search for _your_ partners, see if they can install some common sense into your cores. _Gods_ ," he said disgustedly, blithely ignoring his own divinity as he had since before even Xuanwumon had ascended. "You _all_ need keepers. At least my father had the sense to program himself one."

* * *

"Hello. What are you doing?" Wormmon asked, after walking up the side of the tree to where the baby dragon sat concealed on a branch outside the computer lab.

"Stock market," he said, not bothering to look at Wormmon. "The only actively illegal part is that I'm using a false identity – well, unless one counts how I obtained the original capital, but Ryo considered it acceptable." Which was the important thing.

"Stock market?" Wormmon took a step closer to lean his head over the little flat computer on the ground that Petitmon kept tapping with the end of one of his wings. "What's a stock market?"

"A profitable exercise in predicting the actions of large numbers of panicky and easily led idiots. While there are significant differences between how humans and Digimon think, in some ways they are conveniently identical." Now Petitmon looked at the other Digimon, black eyes narrow. "Don't you have something pathetic to be doing?"

"You're all the way over here when Miyako brought snacks," Wormmon said, touching his two front legs together worriedly. Petitmon was mean, but he was Ryo's partner and he wasn't trying to hurt Ken anymore, so that was no reason not to be nice.

Petitmon looked over at the window of the computer lab, where Ryo, Osamu and Hawkmon's partner Miyako were supposed to have joined Koushiro today, and found it empty. " _Snacks_. Unhealthy food, when humans rarely even last a century," Petitmon grumbled, using his wings to lift the tablet up on top of his head and push himself up off the branch, puffing up a bit so he was still lighter-than-air even weighed down by the phone. "Why did I bother trying to hunt down and exterminate the Chosen Children when they would only have lasted forty or fifty years at this rate… I will have to let Ryo feed me some so he doesn't eat too many." Sighing, he began to drift downwards.

Wormmon hurried down the tree. When Petitmon hovered only six inches off the ground so Wormmon's voice didn't have to carry far to talk to him, he asked, "Why are you still a baby?"

"It's less irritating to work a smartphone as Petitmon than Babydmon, and while Dracomon has hands, that form is larger and can't fly, so concealing myself outside Ryo's class' window is more work and leaves clawmarks on the tree. Speaking of pathetically weak digivolutions, why are _you_ still a Wormmon?"

"That's not very nice," Wormmon scolded him.

Petitmon's irritated sigh made him sink down to the ground. He pushed the smartphone up with a wing so he could look up at Wormmon from under it. "Why don't you de-digivolve to Minomon in the human world? At least Minomon can fit inside a backpack."

"I'm sticking up for other Wormmon," he said proudly. "And Ken said it's good exercise to carry me."

"Hey, there you are," Ryo said, coming around the side of the building. "Thanks for getting him, Wormmon." He smiled at Ken's partner as he picked up his own, plucking the smartphone off the top of his head and sticking it in his bag before he put Petitmon on top of his shoulder.

"You're welcome, Ryo," Wormmon said, scurrying up to him happily.

Petitmon reached after the machine with his small blue wings. "Nope, you're going to talk to people," Ryo told him.

"But medical research is expensive, especially when you won't use anything I produce unless I do it far more ethically than _humans_ do it." Petitmon's little fanged mouth frowned at his partner. So unfair!

"I know what you're capable of, so I'm holding you to a higher standard."

Ryo's partner accepted the flattery, snuggling up against the side of Ryo's neck. "True, but _entirely_ ethical?"

"If I let you get away with just 'better than the other companies,' you'd split hairs and manipulate the other companies into being less ethical so you could do more interesting experiments and you know it," Ryo said, smiling. He reached down to pick up Wormmon. "Let's get you back to the others before Chibimon and the soccer players eat all the snacks," he said, stepping back around the corner of the building to the relatively out of the way nook the Odaiba Chosen Children had claimed for lunch and after school with the help of Hikari being Taichi's sister and _everyone_ knowing Taichi.

"Hey!" Koushiro protested, hand in a bag of chips & Motimon on his lap.

Osamu stared at him. "Your parents _let you play soccer_?"

* * *

"Ryo!" his father called upstairs. "You need to sign for a package!"

"Sure, I'll be right down!" Ryo said, plucking his partner from his lap and putting him and his tablet on the desk. He might not have to hide that he had a partner anymore now that lots of people had theirs, but he didn't know whether or not the person with the package had a partner with them and whether or not that partner had a grudge against Millenniummon.

There was a digital barrier set up on the house that would keep it (and Ryo's family) from getting damaged by an assassin, a victim having a flashback or just one of the more protective kinds of Digimon freaking out and going on the offensive when it realized that the (former) ultimate evil was in the same room as _their partner_ , but it was better to just spare everyone the trouble and possible trauma.

Ryo's eyebrows went up a little when he saw the delivery man was in a suit and his partner was a Commandramon. Most Digimon stayed at in-training form in the human world unless they needed to digivolve for some reason – it took someone capable of being a Chosen Child to keep their partner at rookie level full-time in the human world. For someone to have their partner in a rookie form that carried around a gun while they were just at work, not under attack?

He took the paperwork his dad handed him. Oh, jewelry store. That made sense. He signed, accepted the package and said, "Thanks."

"That had better not be what I think it is," Ryo's dad said, and Ryo turned to see Petitmon had floated down the stairs.

For the first month after moving in, his partner would have said 'almost certainly not,' but he was more aware of what teasing was now, and more willing to put up with it.

"Go on, open it?" Pinamon asked, the small owl-like Digimon running an excited circle around Ryo's legs.

Ryo took the Swiss army knife out of his pocket as his partner floated over and his father's partner ran up a wall so he could glide over to circle around Ryo. He couldn't stay airborne for very long, but Pinamon always wanted to be moving, so he didn't mind having to run up the wall again (his parents had stood a log up against it so he could get traction without pushing his claws into the wall) to re-launch himself.

"I'm not sure whether a crown is better or worse," his father said, only mostly joking.

Ryo and Pinamon stared at Petitmon.

"It's only an island," Petitmon said calmly, but still pleased with himself.

"You got this from a jeweler?" was what puzzled Ryo.

"I own half the company, in exchange for use of my patents on the technology used to refine and shape Chrome Digizoid and certain secrets I haven't shared with any patent offices. I sent them the measurements and design and inspected it through video before allowing them to deliver it," his partner told him.

"You bought an island and made it its own country so you could make me a crown?"

"I bought an island and made you your own country so I could make cloning legal there and make the partner I promised my creation."

Ryo gave his partner a look.

"And to make you a crown. And the tax haven, of course. Otherwise, I would simply have bought politicians to legalize cloning, as amusing as it will be to twist the tails of the Holy Beasts by making them think my ambitions are territorial. I have forwarded the plans for the palace to your laptop."

Meaning: beach house. He'd… just have to check over the plans. Make sure the island wasn't volcanic, that kind of thing. He knew his partner's sense of humor.

"And it's also because Huanglongmon designated Taichi's apartment as an embassy and gave him and Agumon diplomatic immunity, isn't it?" Ryo knew. "Yeah, no. I'm not letting you use diplomatic immunity from your own country to get away with anything, partner."

"Diplomats still can be put on trial in their own countries, and you're the one with the crown, dear Ryo."

* * *

The baby curled around the Kuramon was wearing a onesie the exact color of the artificial jellyfish Digimon.

"Are they not adorable?" Petitmon whispered in his ear, clearly fishing for compliments on his creations.

* * *

"Huanglongmon. According to legend, you were created by the ENIAC itself. Making you not simply the child of a god, but an artificial Digimon," the Evil God had told the great golden dragon.

ZiydMillenniummon, once so vast compared to a mere rookie, was now only the size of one of Huanglongmon's eight eyes. That didn't make him any less dangerously clever, the ruler of the Holy Beasts thought, narrowing those eyes.

The twin-headed dragon opened one of its hands.

It wasn't simply suspicion that instantly focused all of Huanglongmon's attention on what that hand contained.

A small child, asleep. A very fascinating small child, in purple clothing the color of the hide of a long-ago rookie...

"I will not be bribed," he growled, knowing it was useless, because all the apparently-still-very-Evil God would have to do was threaten to close that hand again, to take away that small, frail child.

The thought that ZiydMillenniummon might _harm_ him was… was simply not to be borne.

"I sensed your power on a certain battlefield, and not long after I spoke with Ryo about the legends of the ENIAC's priest. As the ENIAC's firstborn, you are the dragon in those legends, aren't you?" the _evil_ , evil god chuckled.

For all his eyes, he couldn't spare them to glance at the evil god, not when that child might awaken, and smile at him. He remembered the first time he saw Ryo's eyes: so _empty_ , and the thought the child's eyes might look like that… he had to be sure the baby human was alright.

So small, so precious and so _small_. Even the tip of one of his claws would be larger than the child's body.

 _I missed you_.

He hadn't been able to so much as look upon Ryo in this era, even if that hadn't helped the rumors that _all_ of the Holy Beasts, including their ruler, distrusted the Child of Miracles because of his partner. He couldn't risk provoking Millenniummon and getting sealed again. What if he only sealed Huanglongmon and let the other Holy Beasts run around unsupervised?

But… he'd been _able_ to hold himself back from going to see Ryo again. He'd attributed that to age and good sense, but…

What a small, precious existence. Was this what his creator thought when he programmed Ketomon? Humans might be supercomputers, but the ENIAC didn't have a partner. Once he knew about partners, Monodramon had thought that the ENIAC had tried to program a partner for itself and failed, but hadn't wanted to let Monodramon think he was a failure. Then his true purpose had appeared one day, cast out of time and in need of just as much protection as Monodramon's father. Ryo could run and the ENIAC couldn't, but that wouldn't help if Ryo couldn't remember when or why to run. Monodramon had tried to juggle his duty to protect both of them, but he almost hadn't spoken up, almost had let assassins reach his father, so focused on…

…the child that let out an inarticulate noise of complaint now, waking. Huanglongmon wanted to reach out to him but he was so vast now he could crush the little kid and not even feel the pressure on his claws or scales.

"Even if I did make him with Ryo's genes, I cannot believe that even with my memories sealed, I was able to mistake a different soul for my Ryo. I must have been utterly desperate…"

"Yes," Huanglongmon agreed absently. Very pathetically desperate. He'd have to ask his father if he could figure out how Millenniummon created a seal that let him take on the appearance of a lower digivolution without sacrificing his powers. He couldn't afford to show (any more) weakness in front of ZiydMillenniummon.

Not with a partner to protect.

* * *

 _The For Want Of A Nail in this fic was that the ENIAC wasn't fatally damaged by the assassination attempt in the fourth game. Millenniummon's plan was to irreparably paradox Adventure timeline out of existence so he could have control over the new history and Digital World from the ground up: after Ryo defeated him, the ENIAC got access to Millenniummon's power and had to kludge a fix to the timeline._

 _In the canon 'verse, this was not a very_ good _fix due to having to scramble to do_ something _to hold the timeline together before he dropped dead. Despite what his equivalents got up to in other timelines, I am very convinced that Adventure's ENIAC was a good guy._

 _Instead of making sure that if Adventure timeline collapsed, the person who had him assassinated died with it, he sent the egg_ containing Monodramon _(his baby), and also said murderer's partner (still a good person who when they were broken down to nothing, still fought to help people), to another timeline where they'd be safe no matter what happened. That's the action of someone who cares about_ people _rather than the kind of theoretical greater good that cannot actually be accomplished with genocide, because that would violate causality – ends don't justify means, means determine ends._

 _In this timeline, Monodramon grew up to be Huanglongmon. When I get to the 02 epilogue in the marathon, I really do need to add something with Ambassador!Taichi to this. There's much more crack that can be done with the 'verse, but I'm labeling it complete because the main plot arc is done and I finished examining/playing with the stuff I set out to play with._


End file.
